


Of Magic, Love, and Other Forgotten Things

by eosaurora13



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Jesse Manes is His Own Warning, M/M, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-02-23 12:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23711464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eosaurora13/pseuds/eosaurora13
Summary: After a violent encounter with his father, Alex is rescued by a supernatural being.  When he returns to Roswell six months later, he discovers it's home to a host of fantastic creatures, creatures his father would be only too happy to destroy.He never expected Michael Guerin, and he never intended to fall in love with him.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 45
Kudos: 99





	1. Prologue

It’s almost a certainty, given human nature, to gaze up at the stars on a quiet night and wonder if, somewhere in that immense eternity, someone is gazing back. Humans rarely explore the world around them, wondering that, if they stare at the dark pathway in the woods, something beyond their sight is watching them too. 

Maybe they should. 

What they find might surprise them.

* * *

Alex fled the house, his father’s voice following him outside like a physical presence. Coming stateside for leave had been a mistake, coming back to Roswell an even bigger one. There was nothing for him in this godforsaken house except veiled threats, barbed insults, and reminders of the abuse he suffered while under its roof. Nothing to shield him from the fights barely contained beneath its pristine exterior, fights he was in no shape for after the loss of his leg. 

He should have expected the evening’s events. Angry words were hurled, followed by fists, fists that had left him battered and bruised. Taking stock of his injuries, he already knew his ribs were broken, his eye blackened. If it wasn’t swollen shut by tomorrow, he’d be surprised. He had landed a few punches of his own, sure to leave bruises as well. He wasn’t seventeen anymore; he could give as good as he got. But sometimes, it was still easier to flee.

He staggered out into the desert, leaning heavily on his crutch but refusing to notice the pain shooting up into his spine from the prosthetic digging into raw skin. It was one more injury stacked on a mountain of injuries. He lost track of how long or how far he walked, only wanting to escape. To run away.

The crutch caught on a rock. Without the support, he tumbled forward, skinning his arms as he hit the dirt. 

The impact forced the air from his lungs. He rolled to his side, trying to breathe, his ribs and lungs crying out. 

Time lengthened. He felt like he was floating, aware enough to know he wasn’t dying. 

He’d done that before. 

Maintaining the disconnection, he pushed past the resistance, consciously opening his rib cage to allow air in. Every muscle in his chest and abdomen, his diaphragm, protested the abuse. But the grey threatening to close in around him faded as his brain got oxygen again. Once he pushed past the initial shock and pain, he had no further issues breathing, and he hoped he hadn’t punctured a lung.

A pneumothorax or a hemothorax would have just been a cherry on the horrible cake that was his life these past few months. 

He struggled to sit up, muscles he had been vaguely aware only moments ago of screaming at the movement. A repeat scan of his injuries was quick and disheartening. Multiple scrapes on his arms and leg, points of impact that would certainly add to his tapestry of bruises. He hissed as he flexed his foot, his ankle sprained or broken. His crutch lay twisted beyond recognition beside him. Walking anywhere was not an option. 

And his phone was back on his nightstand. He groaned and leaned back. He was well and truly stuck out here. 

Fear wasn’t an emotion he let himself feel readily. It always lay coiled up and waiting in his subconscious, but he kept it at bay. He refused to release it now. 

With night approaching, overheating and sunburns were low on his list of concerns. Freezing, though, was another matter entirely. The sun would take any of the day’s heat with it, and Alex was not prepared to spend the night in the elements. 

He tried to crawl or scoot along the ground, careful of his numerous injuries and broken bones, and his prosthetic, but his body couldn’t handle the strain. As the harsh, cold reality of his situation set in, he angrily blinked back tears. If he was stronger, if he still had his leg – he cut off those lines of thought. He survived the IED that took his leg. He would survive this. 

Night fell.

Alex had nothing to keep him warm, nothing to keep him company, save for his thoughts. Thoughts that were best kept locked away, never to see the light of day. Thoughts about his father, about the war, about what drove him away from Roswell in the first place, the empty hole where his heart and soul used to be. If he delved too deeply into that darkness, it would trap him down there. 

He pulled his jacket tighter and huddled into its hood. Thoughts racing around and around like a hamster trapped on its fucking wheel, he assumed he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but eventually he nodded off.

A hand shaking him startled him awake. He blinked, but his eyes wouldn’t focus. _Something_ stood in front of him. He couldn’t make anything out, his brain supplying only a darkness, a void. Just looking at it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins.

_You’re not dead._

Alex heard words, but it hadn’t spoken. There was an undercurrent of disappointment, as if it hoped he would be dead. But there was curiosity too. He tried to reply, to match the snark head-on, but his mouth wouldn’t form words. 

It pressed against his face, leaving only a tingling sensation against Alex’s skin. A tender gesture that set off every warning bell Alex had. _What brings you out here?_ it mused. _Cold, and all alone._ The voice seemed feminine, not that Alex could really tell.

Another presence broke in, this one masculine. _Leave him alone._

The first protested, _He entered the stones of his own volition. That makes him ours!_

_The townsfolk are off limits_ , the second explained, a touch of impatience coloring the words. _We can’t out ourselves._

The first groaned in frustration, her presence fading as if she moved further away.

_We should get him back to town._

A third presence replied, masculine again, _By we, you mean me, don’t you?_

Two males, one female – of what, Alex couldn’t say, but his brain was too hardwired for information mining to shut it off, the wanting to know.

The third presence sighed. Disinterest and dislike rolled off him in waves. _Why I am always left to clean up the messes?_ he muttered.

The second presence replied, _If you would behave, you might be allowed to do more._ It faded away as the first presence had, leaving Alex alone with the third one.

Irritation sparked through the air as it rumbled, the words too quiet to make out. Alex caught bits and pieces, enough to know that he’d stumbled into a longstanding dispute. 

_What the fuck is a human like you doing out here?_ it asked, finally directing its attention at him. _Injured and cold, you’re easy pickins’ for the likes of us._

Whatever alarm bells the first presence had set off in voicing that same sentiment remained silent now. Alex tried to reason his way through it, but his thoughts came sluggishly as unconsciousness beckoned.

_Come on, sit up._

Nothing answered his brain’s call to action. Nothing moved.

The presence’s irritation spiked. _Are all humans this lazy? Sit up!_

Living so long with his father had ingrained an instinctual response to barked commands. Even if Alex had nothing left, his body would respond. If only to avoid more pain. He sat up, grimacing.

Something about the presence’s gaze left him feeling naked and exposed. The way he’d laid down had hidden the majority of the damage. Sitting up, everything was out in full view.

It reached out.

Alex flinched. “Don’t.” He leaned forward, gasping for breath. Talking wasn’t going to be an option. He glared up at this thing through his one good eye, the one not swollen shut, daring it to say something.

The air stilled until only the fresh, cool scent of the desert remained. 

_I can help._

Unsure what to respond, or how, Alex just blinked slowly.

It crouched beside him, careful to maintain distance between them. A small enough gesture, but, to Alex, it meant everything.

_Think_ , it said, _and I’ll hear you. Do you want me to help?_

Alex dimly recalled something from his old English teacher’s dronings about ancient lore. Never accept help from creatures unless you know the price you’ll pay. He glanced up and thought, What’ll it cost me?

That drew a smile, or at least, Alex assumed it was smiling. The air shifted not unpleasantly. _Nothing yet._

Not an answer, he countered.

It paused before replying. _Don’t come looking for us_ , it finally said. _And don’t hurt us._

The first part was easy, narrow and to the point. Besides, Alex assumed he’d finally gone around the bend – he wasn’t about to seek out his own hallucinations. The second…a lot of things could fall under that. He couldn’t see he had much choice though. 

Deal.

He expected to feel something, some outpouring of power. But all he smelled was sweet scent of earth after rain as the pain constricting his ribs eased, his sight cleared, his ankle reset.

His prosthetic still dug into the raw skin of his leg, that pain having gone nowhere. He rubbed his thigh absentmindedly.

The presence followed the motion. _I couldn’t touch that_ , it explained. If Alex really wanted to, he could hear an apology underneath the words. If he wanted to.

He shrugged, finally taking a good look at what it was that had rescued him. There wasn’t a solid form to make out, but it appeared vaguely humanoid in shape. If he stared too hard, he could have gotten lost forever. Willingly. Disconcerted, he forced his gaze skyward. I didn’t ask you to, he thought.

_Fair enough._ The presence stood. _Shall we?_

Alex struggled to stand. He had worked hard in the weeks after his injury to regain his ability to balance, both with the prosthetic and without. If getting back to town only required him to stand there stupidly, he would have been fine. But walking some undetermined distance without his crutch?

He took one unsteady step. 

_You’re not about to fall down on me, are you?_

He took another step. His leg trembled under the strain.

A feather light touch on his shoulder sent electric shocks down his spine. Every emotion he kept tightly under control threatened to break free.

_If you’re so determined to be stubborn, I can stay out here all night_ , the presence informed him.

Something in its tone set Alex’s teeth on edge but also managed to draw out a weak smile. Fine, he relented. I’ll accept your help.

It chuckled, a rush of air brushing across Alex’s face. _That wasn’t so hard, was it?_

The ground fall away as some unseen force lifted him up. He braced for pain in his leg, but it never came. Instead, he felt a gentle pressure supporting it. That…Alex couldn’t figure out what to make of that. 

A light breeze against his face was the only evidence they were moving, enveloped in what his mind could interpret as nothing but warmth and safety After hours of anxiety and pain and despair, his body finally gave into the exhaustion. He rested his head against what he assumed was a shoulder and resigned himself to sleep.

He groggily came to, every nerve instantly on alert. They were no longer moving. Where are we? he thought.

The presence lowered him to the ground in lieu of replying. It held him steady until he got his feet underneath him.

Alex took in his surroundings. Fear – pure, basic, primal fear – washed over him when he realized he was standing in front of his father’s house. A cold vice gripped him by the throat; he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. His very being cried out. He couldn’t face his father like this; he’d never survive.

_This is the right place, isn’t it?_ the presence asked. 

Not here, Alex thought, anywhere but here.

“Where the fuck is that good for nothing…?” Glass shattered.

Alex flinched.

_No_ , the presence agreed with him, _not here._

Static danced along Alex’s skin when it picked him back up. Belatedly, Alex realized he was feeling its anger. It was angry.

No.

It was furious. 

Not at him. For him.

Alex’s world tilted sideways.

_Where should I take you?_ It sounded so lost.

Alex barely had any energy left, but he tried to hold an image of Liz’s house, hoping that it would somehow understand.

_Is there anything of yours inside?_

He flashed images of his phone, his duffel bag, clothes and laptop.

It sat him back down, further from the house, and vanished.

Alex sat propped against his father’s truck in the drive. He desperately checked each window to see that shadow, but he saw nothing. Just the lights that falsely promised safety. 

His leg barely ached as his whole body shook, whether from fear or the cold. Physically and emotionally, he was going to have hell to pay tomorrow.

If he made it to tomorrow.

He leaned his head back. Please don’t be gone, he thought. Whatever had happened to him tonight, he’d never be able to explain, but it could last a bit longer. 

Get him away from this awful place.

_Miss me already?_

Relief flooded through him. He couldn’t help the smile, weak though it was, as he reached his hand out for it to pull him up.

It left him outside the Crashdown. _You’ll be safe here?_

Safer, he replied.

It nodded. _I’ll take it._

A light flickered on. The weight of what little time they had left settled on Alex’s shoulders. What are you? he asked, afraid he’d never get another chance.

_Something best left forgotten._

There was something infinitely sad in those words. Alex reached for its hand, felt something solid, and squeezed. “Thank you. For all of this.” It wasn’t enough – it would never be enough.

For a brief second, Alex swore he felt lips press into his hair. The presence faded without another word, leaving him alone and bereft. 

He hobbled to the door, knocking loud enough to get Liz’s attention.

More lights turned out, blazing a path through the house and into the café. Liz threw open the door and took in his sorry state.

“Oh my God, Alex, what happened?”

He blinked wearily at her. Even if he had the strength to speak, he doubted he would ever find the words to explain this.

She seemed to understand. “Let’s get you inside, get you warmed up.” She slung his arm across her shoulders and guided him inside.

The last thing he remembered before falling asleep under a mountain of blankets that Liz insisted was necessary was the sight of his phone sitting on the nightstand. 

He felt safe. 

And all he could smell was rain.


	2. Of Homecomings

Though he couldn’t rejoin his fellow soldiers on the front lines, Alex returned to active duty after his leave was up, the events of the last night he ever spent under his father’s roof firmly locked up in the back of his mind. He never spoke of it; he never thought about it. Any time he tried to reach back into that memory, he got lost. To the point he feared he wouldn’t come back, that he wouldn’t want to come back. He carried the feeling of safety with him, but anything else he left alone.

Liz hadn’t asked any questions, hadn’t pried into why he’d showed up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, looking like he’d gone ten rounds with José Cuervo without the bruises to prove it. Her eyes had been sad over breakfast when he told her he was leaving again, but she had understood. 

She helped him pack his things after he confirmed his flight with his SO. She didn’t ask – and if she had, he wouldn’t have answers – how all of his belongings had arrived with him. 

As he hoisted his duffel bag over his shoulder and headed out the door, she asked, “What would you say if I asked for access to your bank account?”

He paused and turned back to her. “Why? You and your family hurting for money?”

She shook her head. “Nothing like that. Just…wanted to do something for you when you’re finally done.” Tears welled in her eyes. “When you come home for good.”

Setting his bag down with a hefty thud, he pulled her into a hug. There was nothing legal about him giving her access to his very livelihood – there was nothing legal about his father having the same control either – but he trusted Liz with his life. And with his finances, apparently. 

Especially if it kept everything out of his father’s hands.

He jotted down the information she needed and handed it to her, a silent exchange that spoke volumes. 

She gave him one final hug. “Stay safe, Manes.”

The fallout from the fight with his father was far less than he anticipated. Of course, word had gotten back to his superiors – his father had made sure of that – but Alex was skilled at defusing anything his father put in his way. 

And his hacking abilities were too advanced to sideline him for long. When he was the only person capable of retrieving vital intel from highly secured terrorist servers, what his father wanted lost some of its power. 

Six months, that was all he had left. Six months of keeping his head down, his record clean, and he was home free. He repeated it like a mantra.

It came and went faster than he expected, and he was packed up and heading back to the states. Done with the Air Force for good this time.

He gazed out the airplane window as it taxied into the Albuquerque airport, fiddling with his phone now that it was officially safe to use. The last thing he wanted to deal with was the over-exuberant flight attendant scolding him like a child with a fake smile plastered on her face. He finally switched it on, not expecting much. 

His phone pinged and pinged again. He fumbled with it until he found the volume button, switching it to vibrate. The sheer amount of texts surprised him, with trepidation swift on its heels. Some of them were from his brothers – he filed those away for later – some from his unit, and some from his friends in town. 

Word of his discharge had traveled fast.

He noticed he had received no communication – text, email, phone call – from his father. Like the messages from his brothers, he pushed the thought aside.

One text drew his attention.

**From Liz: Call when you land**

Alex allowed himself to smile as he dialed her number.

She picked up on the first ring. “You’re in Albuquerque already?”

“Yeah, funny thing, flights tend to not be delayed when you’re in the military.” It wasn’t quite true. Sometimes they were delayed by days instead of hours. But, most of the time, they kept flights on time.

“Great,” she said. “I’ll be waiting for you outside baggage claim.”

The gears in Alex’s brain ground to a halt. “Wait, you’re here?”

“Just pulled into a pick-up spot.” The sounds of her shifting into park and shutting the car off filtered over the speaker. “Better get moving.”

“Yes ma’am,” he muttered. 

Thankfully, the airport was mostly empty so the only hindrance to his progress was his leg. He was far more practiced with it, but it was something he never would get completely used to. It wasn’t a part of him yet, and he doubted it ever would be.

He grabbed his duffel bag from the carousel and headed out into the crisp, cool evening air.  
Liz waved him down from her car.

Dumping his bag into her trunk and sliding into the passenger seat, he asked, “What’s so important that you drove three hours to pick me up?”

She stared at him. “You would have preferred spending hundreds of dollars for an Uber?”

He laughed, settling into that familiar banter. “As a last ‘fuck you’ to Uncle Sam? I could make it work.”

Her smile faded into something softer, fonder, but mischief sparked in her eyes. “There’s still time.”

He waved her off. “No, no, I’m in the car now. We’re doing this.”

Having that settled, Liz fished a stack of paperwork from the compartment in her door and dumped it in his lap. “Homecoming present,” was her only explanation.

Alex flipped through the papers. His hands stilled when he saw what it was. “Liz, what – ”

“Look,” she cut him off. “You’ve never said, but I thought it might be good if you had your own place.” She glanced at him before pulling out onto the main road. “Something away from your dad?”

He couldn’t stop staring at the picture-perfect house. “How did you even manage this?”

She chuckled. “Remember when I asked for access to your bank account? Don’t worry, I only borrowed it.” She glanced over her shoulder to merge onto the interstate. “The previous owners were only too happy for someone to buy it.”

Alex managed a weak laugh. “Liz, this is – I can’t –“

“You can” she replied. 

“I don’t want charity.”

She shook her head. “What part of your bank account did you not hear? It’s yours – you’ll certainly be feeling the mortgage later. I just facilitated its procurement.”

Alex flipped through a few more pages. The house appeared in good condition, fully furnished, spacious enough to accommodate his leg. “Do I have you to thank for the furnishings as well?”

“You honestly trust me to decorate? No, that was all Maria.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine Liz’s idea of decoration. Every room would be ceiling to floor books – not the worst outcome – and laboratory equipment. Alex much preferred Maria’s eye over that, anything to not remind him of his time in hospital rooms.

To deflect from the emotions threatening to overwhelm him, he asked, “So what else has been going on since I left?”

“Well, maybe a week – two? – after you skipped out, some old faces walked back in.” Liz kept her face carefully closed, her attention on the road.

“Old faces?” Alex repeated, suddenly on edge. Something in her tone raised a red flag.

Liz nodded. “You remember the Evans twins?”

“I remember you fawning over Max.” Alex was careful to keep his tone neutral. Liz had been head-over-heels for Max – his sudden and unexplained departure had devastated her. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Really? They came back? Why?”

“I have no idea. They haven’t exactly been forthcoming.” 

Alex tried to process this new development. The Evans twins had always been strange in their way, as if something about them connected to the amygdala’s signaling pathways and warned of danger. Right after senior year prom, they vanished without a trace, without an explanation. Right before Liz’s sister Rosa died in a massive car crash. No one had seen or heard from them since. 

Their sudden reappearance was a bombshell. 

“So I have a house, and the Evanses are back. Anything else going on? Something more normal?”

Liz laughed, edging toward brittle. “When have our lives ever been normal?” 

They rode in silence, comfortable enough despite the conversation. Alex rolled down the window, let the brisk wind whip his hair into his facing, stinging just enough to keep him awake.

“Oh,” Liz said, finally breaking into his thoughts, “and Michael Guerin came back too.”

Alex closed his eyes. He hadn’t allowed himself to think the name Michael Guerin in years except in extreme moments of weakness. They had – they could have become friends, or something more. But they never managed to say more than a few words at a time to each other. 

In quiet moments, when his heart was already sore from losing a soldier under his command or hurting from another pained encounter with his father or after yet another bad physical therapy session as he recovered from the loss of his leg, he would drag the memories back up. To pile on insult to injury. 

Just hearing Liz speak his name made Alex feel like he was seventeen again, listening to Michael pick quiet tunes on the guitar Alex had stolen from his brother. One of far too many lost opportunities.

“And now I’ll be back,” Alex quipped, shaking himself loose and rolling the window back up.

Liz caught onto the rawness in his voice. “Just like old times.”

She drove him to his house, parking in the drive and helping him carry his stuff inside. Before she left, she hugged him tightly. “Take some time, find your way around. Maria wants to have a welcome home party at the Pony when you’re up to it.”

Alex rested his head on her shoulder. He didn’t want to need the support, physical or emotional, but he allowed himself this moment. He pulled back. “I’ll think about it.”

“All I ask.” She waved one last time and climbed back into her car.

Alex stood on his porch, watching until she disappeared into the distance. With nothing left to stop him, he walked back inside and started a full tour of the house – a house that Liz had assured him was his and his alone. He still couldn’t believe this was what Liz had planned all those months ago – a house without any strings attached, that his father couldn’t control him over.

And yet, despite the unfamiliar surroundings, he could hear his father’s footsteps around the corner, could hear his strained, angry breathing waiting for Alex to step a toe out of line. His heartrate skyrocketed, his chest constricting painfully. He unconsciously shifted into a position to run, locating any exit available. 

The panic faded as quickly as it appeared, but it left him shaken and breathless.

Propping against the kitchen cabinet, he sank to the floor. He wrapped his arms around himself in a last-ditch attempt to himself together. The threat of losing control, of letting the dam burst, always lingered just beneath his carefully constructed exterior, but to give in to it would be to hand a victory to his father. 

Inhaling deeply and shoving every negative emotion back into its box, he struggled back to his feet. Almost on autopilot, he retrieved his laptop and, after quickly connecting to the internet that Liz had already set up, purchased a top-of-the-line security system. If something were to happen, he wanted as much proof as he could possibly provide.

Satisfied he was doing everything he could on that front, he glanced around. In the living alone, he found half a dozen things to do, the first of which was to unpack. 

He bounced from project to project until there was nothing left for him to do. His few possessions put away, the house cleaned to perfection, the furniture rearranged to better accommodate his needs – and the house still did not feel like home. 

His brain refused to let him even try out his bed, so he settled for watching trash TV while surfing the internet mindlessly. 

Every time he tried to lean back and close his eyes, the horrible cycle of what if, what if, what if started again, taunting him.

What if his father found him?

What if he went after Liz and Maria for helping him?

What if he was right and every last piece of verbal or physical abuse he’d inflicted over the years was deserved?

What if?

What if?

What – 

Alex threw his laptop aside.

He couldn’t stay in the house, couldn’t breathe. The walls closed in around him. He shouldered into a jacket and walked out into his backyard. Beautiful, warm fairy lights twinkled from the branches of the large tree. It was peaceful here.

Quiet. 

Alex settled onto a lounge chair to watch the sunrise. He let himself stare up at the sky and just be.

If he focused on the clouds, he could almost see them as wings. Wings of a great bird.

He blinked. The clouds moved.

The wings flapped.

Even though this wasn’t real – it couldn’t be real – the sheer majesty took his breath away.

He rose from the chair and stood transfixed as the massive creature flew skyward with the sun, its wings stretching out across the heavens. It dragged fire in its wake, changing the clouds’ colors from navy to purple to brilliant pinks and oranges. 

Tires crunching on gravel distracted him. He glanced toward the road to see a car passing by.

He chanced another look at the sunrise and bit back the bitter tang of disappointment when it appeared just like any other. The fantastic creature had vanished.

You’re seeing things, he told himself. The cost of not sleeping for thirty-six hours. 

His phone rang, barely loud enough to hear outside.  
He scrambled inside, looking back at the sky one last time. 

The caller ID read **Maria DeLuca**. He answered, switching to speakerphone. “You’re up early.”

“You weren’t asleep.” 

He shrugged easily even knowing she couldn’t see it. “Jet lag.”

She hummed in acknowledgment. “Is the house treating you okay?” 

Alex laughed incredulously. “The house is great, Maria. Absolutely fantastic.” From her involvement’s standpoint, it was the truth. He wasn’t about to dump all of his anxieties on her. They weren’t hers to deal with.

“It was all Liz’s idea. I just helped.”

“My kitchen doesn’t have a working chem lab,” Alex countered. “From the mastermind herself, that’s all you.”

She chuckled. “Fine, I will take some credit.”

Alex rested against the counter, taking some of the weight off his leg. “Is there a reason you’re calling, or did you just miss me that much?”

“You do realize you’re assuming everyone has an agenda.”

Because they usually do, he thought, his mind circling back to a chance encounter and the deal he’d made. Despite how he’d felt after he’d made it, he still had to strike it in the first place. 

“Earth to Alex,” Maria chided, gently pulling him from his thoughts.

“Yeah, sorry.” After six months, he knew not to dive into that rabbit hole, yet he still went after it willingly. “What’d you say?”

“I was asking if you wanted to come back the Pony tonight. Nothing big or fancy. Just you, me, Liz, maybe Kyle if he’s not on shift.”

Alex wanted to say no, that he was still tired from traveling and couldn’t handle being around people, even his friends. But after his panic-fueled night, he couldn’t see himself staying cooped up inside the house all day either. He was stuck in limbo.

“Yeah, I’ll be there. On one condition,” he heard himself say. “Drive me to the hardware store?”

“Speaking of agendas,” she said, her voice light and teasing.

“I don’t have a car!” he protested just this side of whining, which sent Maria over the edge.

She burst out laughing, and Alex was helpless not to join in. God, but it felt good to laugh.

“Whatever, flyboy. I’ll swing by shortly.”


	3. Of Reunions and Propositions

The Wild Pony wasn’t the worst bar in Roswell. Not as well-known as some of its more touristy counterparts, it served as the watering hole for the locals only; the faces Alex would see there were all familiar. 

Besides, Maria ran a tight ship. She tolerated no shenanigans under her roof, as her patrons well knew. Even if the crowds got rowdy, Alex never feared for his safety. The few times he’d come home on leave without his father’s knowledge or approval, the Pony had been his sanctuary. He had first tried to let that sanctuary be the Crashdown – the one time he did, his father had found out. It ended in disaster.

He never tried again. 

He pushed the door open and walked inside, letting the ambience sink in. More classic western, less campy alien motifs. The cross the town had to bear being the supposed site of an alien crash was, to Alex, just a part of its charm. Still, he had to admit it grated on occasion. The Pony almost felt like an aberration, an oasis in the desert.

Maria waved at him from behind the bar. She pointed toward the booth where Liz and Kyle were waiting. “I’ll be there shortly,” she assured him. “Got some of those customers, right?”

He smirked at the bums further down the bar without pity. “Have fun.” 

Leaving Maria to it, he slid into the booth next Liz. 

Kyle pushed a drink across the table. “Still a whiskey man, I hope?”

Alex tossed the shot back, the alcohol coating his throat in warmth. “Always.”

“You know, I think Liz and Maria like you more than me,” Kyle said.

Alex laughed, his soul dancing in that freedom. “Why? They not surprise buy you a house while you were slaving away in med school?”

Kyle threw a wounded look at Liz. “See? He gets it.” He knocked back his shot. “Seriously though, how’s the house?”

Alex still had a love/hate relationship with the house, because of how messed up his mind was and how he viewed the world. Even after Maria had herded him to the hardware store earlier and served as a sounding board for some of his more interesting project ideas, he couldn’t quite wrap his thoughts around having a space that was _his_. But he was already protective of it. 

If his father caught wind there was something Alex had – something he loved – that he didn’t approve of, he would stop at nothing to destroy it. 

God, he was fucked up. 

“It’s great,” Alex said, glancing at Liz. “It honestly doesn’t feel real.”

Liz pointed a finger at Kyle. “You know what might help it feel more like home? A movie marathon.”

Alex groaned. “Don’t tell me you still haven’t seen Star Wars.”

Kyle shrugged, not looking at all apologetic. “Yes, I was absolutely able to fit it in while cramming for my board exams and pulling fourteen-hour shifts on surgery.”

“Careful,” Liz warned, “I might end up tripping in all that sarcasm.”

Maria joined them, another round of drinks in her hands. “Round two, anyone?”

Alex accepted the drink gladly, thankful for the alcohol numbing his nerves dancing like live wires. He had dreaded having a welcome home party. His father would have made a town spectacle out of it, parading him in front of everyone, taking perverse pleasure in how uncomfortable it made him to have the entire town turn out to celebrate everything he never wanted. 

But his father was nowhere in sight.

With this small gathering, Alex realized he spat in the face of everything his father had tried to turn him into.

He settled into the conversation going on around him with a growing sense of nostalgia. After a decade of not letting himself have this, he realized how alien it felt, how out of touch he was. But, given time, he could get used to it again.

“So, what are you gonna do, now that you’re out?” Kyle asked.

Alex shrugged. “I haven’t given it much thought,” he admitted. “Wasn’t really worth focusing on the future when I wasn’t guaranteed to have one.”

The atmosphere around them shifted toward something darker, more uncomfortable. Alex rarely spoke about his time in the Air Force, aside from when he absolutely had to. He had allowed himself a set number of conversations he wanted to have on the subject, many of which he’d burned through after he lost his leg. 

“But you’re out now,” Liz prodded gently. “You can do whatever you want.”

Which was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? What did he want? He remembered how badly he _wanted_ as a child, as a teenager, and he remembered the pain that wanting brought him. Between the military and his father, wanting had been beaten out of him. 

He wasn’t sure he remembered how to want.

He gave Liz a small smile, more to alleviate her worries than out of genuine relief or happiness. “Let me take a vacation for a bit then I’ll think about it.”

Maria regarded him thoughtfully. Her eyes could bare a soul, but instead of the violence in the sensation he expected from years of experience, he felt peace. She tapped a finger against her lips. “I might have something for you. If you think you’d be interested.”

Alex gave her the same response he’d given Liz, with a bit more bite behind it, effectively putting his foot down. “I’ll think about it.”

The conversation turned back to lighter topics. Kyle eventually had to duck out to start his night shift at the hospital. He squeezed Alex’s shoulder as he passed. “Good to have you back, man. Let me know about that marathon, yeah?”

“You know it.”

Before Maria had to say her farewells to announce last call and close up, Liz paid for their drinks and drove Alex home. 

She shifted her weight uncomfortably as Alex fiddled with his house key to unlock his front door. “You know we’re just trying to help, right?” she asked.

Alex shook his head. “I wasn’t mad,” he hastily assured her, surprising himself at the truth behind the words. Yes, he’d been frustrated, but not angry. “I really haven’t given things much thought. Glad you guys are watching my six.”

Liz opened her mouth to say something else.

“Just – ” Alex cut her off, “Let’s just leave it at that.”

She nodded. “Okay.” Before she turned to go, she added, “You should take Maria up on her offer, whatever it is.”

“You trying to keep me out of trouble, Ortecho?” Alex couldn’t fight the smile spreading on his face.

“Or trying to get you in it,” she countered. “I give it two days before you are _climbing_ the walls. And you spent good money on those walls.”

Alex didn’t even last those two days. He installed the outside portion of the security system, taking advantage of the cool morning and evening air, retreating to work on the inside portion during the heat of the day. He cursed the assistant at the hardware store who had cut the bullet-resistant plastic slightly to the wrong dimensions as he filed it down and attached it to the inside of his windows. He reinforced the hinges on the exterior doors and mounted security doorstops behind them to dissuade anyone from busting in.

The threat of his father – who, to his knowledge, had left Roswell not long after he had and was still radio silent – loomed over him like a shadow. 

Finally, at his wit’s end, desperate for something to distract him and possibly get him out of the house, he called Maria. 

“You lost me money, Alex,” she said in lieu of a greeting.

Alex chuckled. “Hello to you too. I haven’t left my house in two days – how have I lost you money?”

She sighed. “That’s just it. I bet you’d call yesterday.”

He walked into his kitchen, grabbed a granola bar and stuffed it in his mouth between words. “I fail to see how that’s my fault. _You_ were the one betting.”

The only answer he got was a groan of frustration.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work through why she was so upset. “You lost to Valenti, didn’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Ooh, that is rough.”

“Fuck you too.” 

Alex let the silence stretch, pushing the boundaries of discomfort. Occasionally, he let mischievousness out to play.

“And now you’re being an ass,” Maria called him out. “I don’t have to give you that info, you know.”

He laughed. “I know, I know.”

“Give me five minutes – I’ll head over.”

That Maria wouldn’t speak of this over the phone sparked Alex’s interest. And his concern. He refused to travel down that rabbit hole just yet. He dropped his phone from his ear and clutched it to his chest, focusing on steadying his breathing until he heard Maria’s car pull into the drive.

He tried not to fidget as Maria gave his interior decorating the once over.

“This isn’t the army, Alex. You can relax.” She smiled, not unkindly. “It is _your_ house.” With a wink, she walked further inside.

Alex swallowed, consciously uncoiling his muscles that had tensed unknowingly. “So, what’s this project you’ve got for me?”

Maria sank into the sofa. “What makes you think it’s a project?”

“How long have we known each other?” Alex took the loveseat next to her, stretching his leg, rubbing the soreness out.

She rolled her eyes. “I was approached a few weeks ago. By Max Evans.”

Max Evans. The name had come up twice now since he’d come home. And with it, other memories he didn’t care to revisit. “I assume Liz doesn’t know about this.”

Maria looked lost. “I don’t know why he came to me and not her. They’ve been so… secretive?”

Alex nodded, absorbing the information. Each new detail became a piece to the larger puzzle, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he had a few pieces in the wrong place. “What did he want?”

“He didn’t quite say.”

“The fuck does that mean?” he asked. “Did he, or didn’t he?”

“He turned me down when I offered to help with whatever it was,” she explained with a wide gesture. “And my skill set isn’t exactly small.”

Alex ran a hand down his face. “And our skill sets are so different?” It was a dangerous question to voice – he knew full well what skills he’d obtained over the last decade.

“I’d hate to see you bartend,” was all she said on the matter.

If his heart could burst with gratitude, it would have. “So, all we know is Max Evans needs help with...something, and that you can’t do it.”

“Something like that.”

“Do they know you’re asking me?”

Maria shook her head. “Just, if I could think of anyone, to have them meet up at the Crashdown.”

Already, Alex was setting up a mental game of chess, the line “moves and countermoves” from Catching Fire bouncing around unbidden. Partly, curiosity drove him, but something else was too – he couldn’t name what it was yet. “When?”

“I’ll text him and set it up.”

* * *

**From Maria: Tuesday at 11, Crashdown**

**Alex: I’ll be there**

* * *

Alex waited at the waitress station at the Crashdown, tapping his fingers against the wood. He glanced up at the clock.

11:10.

“Alex Manes. Fancy seeing you here.”

Hearing a voice right behind him – far too close – set his heart racing, but he schooled his expression into something neutral and calmly turned. Isobel Evans was as stunning as she had been in high school, perhaps more so, and dressed to the nines. Every guy had ogled her, drooled after her. A quick glance around the restaurant told him nothing had changed on that front. 

Honestly, in his father’s eyes, the fact that he hadn’t been one of those guys was more revealing than a lot of other things he could have done.

“Isobel,” he replied. “I assume you’re who I’m supposed to be meeting.”

Her smile was predatory. She motioned to the table behind her. “After you.”

“So, what is all of this about?” he asked as he took a seat. “Honestly, I expected your brother after talking to Maria, but neither of you has been social since your sudden return.”

It was a low dig, meant to bury in deep and hurt the entire way. Isobel’s eyes widened, and Alex knew he’d found his mark.

“You have a wicked tongue,” she commented as she sat opposite him, calmly glossing over his remarks and her reaction. “Is that a skill they teach in the army?”

Alex considered correcting her, but the rules of this engagement had been set. He intended to adhere to them. “You didn’t ask me here to trade barbed insults.”

She regarded him with watchful consideration, and Alex couldn’t quite shake the urge to run. “We, my brothers and I, require assistance. It’s not necessarily legal.”

He had a list a mile long – or longer – of things he’d done that weren’t _necessarily_ legal. Legality didn’t concern him. What his brain settled on though was “brothers”. Brothers? Isobel and Max were twins, that much he remembered. Either she had another brother, one that had never been to Roswell, or she was referring to Michael Guerin. 

The urge to run got stronger.

“Are you interested?” she asked.

Alex waved down a waitress and ordered a milkshake. No matter the situation, milkshakes improved everything. “Depends on what assistance you need.”

“How so?”

He shrugged. “I’ve learned a lot of things during my time in the Air Force,” he said with a pointed smile.

Isobel nodded her acquiescence at his subtle correction.

“Means I’m skilled, not God.” 

She pressed forward, resting her elbows on the table. “How is your skill with computers?”

Alex had played a poker game or two during his years overseas and had learned very early on to keep his hand close and his poker face closer. “Above average.”

“You were a captain in one of the elite hacking divisions in the Air Force,” she countered. “Somehow, I doubt you’re simply above average.”

More pieces slid into place, a picture starting to emerge in Alex’s mind. “You need to hack into something, something big.”

If Isobel was surprised, she didn’t show it. “Would you be interested?”

“That depends.” He was stalling for time – time to let his brain work through various scenarios and outcomes. And fallout.

“I would think, with your record, you wouldn’t have many stipulations.”

“Let me explain one thing,” he said, pitching his voice lower. “You may think you’ve done your research and you may think you know enough to judge me, but don’t think for a second you actually know me. Okay?”

The smile Isobel gave him was almost warm. “You have a good soul, Alex Manes. I think you’ll do nicely.”

Alex thanked the waitress when she finally arrived with his milkshake. “I haven’t said yes,” he reminded her.

Isobel shook her head. “Not yet, but you will.”


	4. Of Conversations Going Sideways

Alex hoped waiting on the Evans twins wouldn’t become a habit. He nursed the drink Maria had brought him – whiskey, of course – as the second hand on the clock above the bar whiled away the time. Ten more minutes – that’s all he’d give them. Ten minutes to reflect on the past couple of days and question his life decisions.

His meeting with Isobel had shaken him. That he was a skilled hacker, one of the best, was not common knowledge, especially in Roswell. He didn’t know how Isobel had found out, or what she and Max could possibly need that skill for.

She seemed so certain he would help them. So much so that later in the evening, his phone had buzzed.

**Unknown number: Meet us at the Pony tomorrow 8 pm.**

He had waited for any other information, but none was forthcoming.

He hadn’t replied.

Whatever her motivations for asking, and whatever his for considering it, he lacked the resources and preparedness to properly do her request justice. First and foremost, he lacked transportation. Though he kept one foot pointing toward the exit in case he had to flee Roswell, every sign indicated he would be around a while. He couldn’t expect Liz and Maria to continue to shepherd him around like a lost puppy. He needed a car.

Earlier that morning, he had called an Uber to take him to a used car lot and settled quickly on a newer, less beat up model, not allowing the salesman to even get in a breath to start his pitch. The car would fall apart when he most needed it not to if the pitiful noises coming from the engine were anything to go by, but it would serve for the moment. That was all Alex could ask for.

Especially for the five thousand dollar hit to his bank account.

Listless and with several hours still to burn through before his upcoming meeting, he had done a little hacking of his own. He dug into what the Evans had been doing in Roswell since their return. Well, Max and Isobel. He consciously did not look into Michael. 

Isobel was recently divorced from a man named Noah Bracken, but aside from brief mentions in Isobel’s wedding certificate and divorce proceedings, Alex found no further information on the man. As if he didn’t exist. Isobel kept her nose clean, living off a trust fund, and had done little to integrate back into the town.

Max was another story. He had applied for a job with the police department within days of Alex’s departure and had quickly risen to the position of deputy. From the news articles Alex read, most of Roswell appreciated his no-nonsense approach to police work. He’d even solved a few cold cases from the forties and fifties. A real golden child. But, as with Isobel, there was no other evidence Max Evans was a part of Roswell.

Both stories had the distinct flavor of covers, holding patterns to maintain until something happened or something shifted. Alex feared what that something might be, and what he might have to do with it. 

“I apologize for making you wait.” Isobel said, breaking into his thoughts, drawing him back to the present – to the Pony. She took the chair next to him, Max the one opposite. “Max’s car refused to start.”

Alex pushed aside the feeling of two wolves circling their prey. He expected the reaction to Isobel from their earlier meeting, but feeling the same toward Max unsettled him.

Max said, “I keep intending to get it fixed. Never seem to find the time.” Some undercurrent in his voice convinced Alex it was an inside joke he wasn’t privy to. 

Alex sipped his drink to hide his unease. “That seems to be a problem in more than one aspect of your life.”

A rapid blink was the only sign he’d struck a nerve. “Isobel said you have no issue speaking your mind.” 

Alex met Max’s gaze evenly. A silent conversation passed in those few seconds, the open knowledge of Max’s treatment of Liz and Alex’s condemnation of it. Whatever alarms the Evans twins set off, Alex stood up for his friends. “If that’s not a deal breaker,” he said, “let’s talk about what the hell this is, and what the hell you want from me?” He leaned forward, propping against his elbows. 

Max and Isobel traded a look that Alex couldn’t quite decipher. “You understand that we need a hacker.”

“Isobel insinuated something along those lines, yeah.” Alex flashed a smirk at Isobel when she glared at him. “But she didn’t mention what I would be hacking into. Or why.”

“Does it matter?”

Alex had hacked into so many places, so many different networks and governments, at the Air Force’s command, and had cost countless people their lives. He was out, and he was through taking orders that he didn’t agree with. “Yeah, it does,” was all he said.

Max nodded. He signaled to Maria for more drinks. “We need you to look into a paramilitary program that goes by the name Project Shepherd.” He slid a USB across the table. “Everything we know is on that.”

The name rang a bell, from one of countless mission briefings. Figuring out which briefing, and what other missions it was related to – he could dig through those memories in the safety of his own home. Grabbing the USB and holding it up in the light, Alex said, “What’s so important about it?”

Isobel answered, “We think they’re involved in illegal experimentation.”

Alex scoffed. “So, you’re what? The saviors riding in on white horses?” He handed the USB back to Isobel. “There are proper channels for this.”

She pushed his hand away. “We’ve tried them.”

“Then you should drop it.”

“We can’t,” Max said. “There’s a distinct possibility we know…people who were taken.”

Alex needed to drop this like a hot potato – drop it and never look back. Everything about this screamed covert military op, but he couldn’t explain why Max or Isobel would know people that such an op would target. “Say I help, I get you into their systems, what then? What exactly will you do with that information?”

The bell on the front door ringing as the door opened cut off whatever Max might have replied. A lone man, face hidden underneath a wide-brimmed, black cowboy hat, approached the bar. Something in the way he held himself, a casual saunter offset by the tense line of his shoulders, tugged at Alex’s memory. 

Neither Isobel nor Max spoke, and something akin to dread settled in Alex’s stomach.

Maria watched the man approach bar, alert but not overly wary. A regular then, and occasional troublemaker.

Alex kept one ear tuned to Max and Isobel to catch anything they said, while keeping a lingering attention on the newcomer, in case Maria needed assistance. 

The man removed his hat, sat it on the bar next to him, revealing his face and head of unruly curls to the room as he ordered a drink.

The breath fled Alex’s body as if it had been physically punched out. Despite the decade that had worn it, chiseled into it, erased the chubby boyish features to reveal the sharp lines underneath, the man’s face was not one Alex would ever be able to forget. No matter how hard he tried. 

Isobel called out, her voice barely rising above conversational levels, “Michael, over here.”

Michael collected his hat with a wink at Maria before walking over. He slumped into the only free chair at the table, right next to Alex. “’Sup, bro.”

“Guerin.” Alex forced the word out through his teeth. His very being burned just from the proximity. Years of regret, of longing never acted on, flooded his system in a rush. With willpower he didn’t know he had, he bottled it up, tucking it deep inside to process later. Or never.

“You’re late,” Max said, disappointment dipping off every word. 

Michael’s entire demeanor changed. His body stiffened, his smile turned fake, brittle. 

Alex met Isobel’s gaze, sharing a strange moment of camaraderie in the awkward silence. Whatever problems lay between her brothers, she had no more idea how to handle them than he did. He bit back the retort that Max too had been late – alienating people he might work with was not a sound business plan. 

“Next time, fix your own damn car,” Michael retorted. “Or drive it until it falls apart, you wreck, and you die.” He shrugged, a careless gesture. “Entirely up to you.”

“That’s enough,” Isobel snapped, but her tone bordered on begging.

Maria broke the moment, delivering the drinks Max had ordered. She nodded to them, exchanging a look with Alex, letting him know she would bail him out if this got too hot.

With Max distracted, Michael shifted back to the cocky abandon with practiced ease. “What’d I miss then?”

“Just this,” Alex said, finding his voice. He waved the USB in Michael’s face.

“You told him?” Michael grit out.

“Yes, we told him.” Isobel glanced between Alex and Michael, trying to understand her brother’s sudden anger. “We need this looked into, and unless you’ve taken a course in hacking you forgot to mention, we can’t do it alone.”

Michael ran a hand through his hair. “You can’t just – I thought we’d – ”

“ _We_ didn’t anything,” Max said, voice pitched low. “Simply because you disagreed, it doesn’t mean the plan was worthless.”

“Did they tell you who runs the project?” Michael asked, spinning to Alex, grinning like the Cheshire cat. 

Whatever the answer was, Alex dreaded to hear it. This was a man itching to lash out at the world, and he conveniently happened to be the closest target. He braced himself for the worst, but he could never prepare for the blow Michael landed.

“Jesse Manes.” 

Alex’s stomach sank to the floor. To have spent his whole life running from his father in the hopes of finally escaping him…would he never be free of the horrors that man wrought on the world?

With two simple words, Michael trapped him. Whether he realized it or not. Alex was in this for the long haul, no matter how this meeting ended. No one else should suffer at his father’s hands.

“So why the fuck are we confiding in his son?” Michael demanded of his siblings, meeting Alex’s gaze with a sharp smile that was all teeth.

Alex leaned back. The words boiled in his blood, set his ears ringing, but he was too used to the comparison to lose control. In the eyes of the world, he had followed in his father’s footsteps – a Manes man through and through. “You don’t want me here?” he asked. “I can go.”

Michael clenched his fist, nostrils flaring.

He was treading on very thin ice, poking a bear that would attack at the slightest provocation. He plastered on a fake smile, one he’d perfected living with his father, and waited.

The silence stretched on uncomfortably. Neither Isobel nor Max stepped in to fill it, neither joining Michael in his damnation nor countering it.

Alex slung back the remainder of his whiskey and slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “I guess we’re done.” He slid out of the chair, mindful – always mindful – of his leg. “Thanks for the drink.” 

He waved Maria off, not wanting her to join in the shitshow, as he collected his jacket and keys from behind the counter. There would be time to talk about this venture falling apart before it started, but all Alex wanted at the moment was to go home.

Pushing the door open, he inhaled fresh air. It didn’t quite clear his head, but the simple task of taking in oxygen settled him. He headed out into the parking lot, keys in hand.

“Where are you going?”

Alex closed his eyes. He glanced at Michael over his shoulder. “None of your concern,” he said.

Michael stepped closer. “We weren’t finished.”

Irritation skittered like static along Alex’s skin, the urge to strike out unbearably strong. “I think you made it pretty clear we were.” Between the raw ends of his nerves flaring and the anger rolling off Michael in waves, Alex couldn’t see a way out of this that didn’t end in a fight. 

Except Michael suddenly and inexplicably deflated. His shoulders slumped, his brow pinching as if in pain. “Yeah, yeah, I guess I did.”

Confused at the shift in conversation, and Alex couldn’t swear they were even having the same conversation anymore, he staggered back. Pain shot up his leg from his prosthetic as he landed wrong. Fuck, he knew better than to stay seated so long.

Michael tracked the movement and the reaction, his face falling slack. He sucked in a breath before spinning on his heel to retreat inside.

Alex still struggled to process the last few minutes and, on autopilot, he reached out to grab Michael’s shirt sleeve. “What is happening here, Guerin?”

But Michael simply shook his head, stray curls falling over his eyes. “Go home, Manes. Isobel shouldn’t have brought you in on this.”

“I can’t just – ”

Michael pressed closer, towering over Alex despite there being little difference in their height. “Go. Home. Forget about all of this. For you own good.” Heading for the door, he brushed past Alex right as Alex inhaled an intoxicating mix of bourbon, grease…

And rain. 

Alex’s brain short-circuited. In his darkest moments, he could convince himself he had hallucinated _something_ rescuing him from his father and healing his injuries, the sweet scent of petrichor that was so rare in the desert nothing more than the fabrication of a pain-addled mind.

He could convince himself that he wasn’t worth saving.

But his world flipped on its head as he breathed in again. His body responded in an almost Pavlovian way, relaxing into that sense of safety even as his mind raced through a thousand thoughts.

There was no way that – 

Michael couldn’t have – 

Without looking, Alex knew Michael’s gaze bore into him, could pinpoint the exact spots on his body where his gaze landed. He glanced up, meeting that gaze. 

Michael’s expression was unreadable, uncomfortable to the point that Alex turned away, focusing instead on getting in his car. 

Even as he pulled out of the parking lot and drove across town, even when he got home and locked the door behind him, Alex still felt Michael’s eyes on him, as if he hadn’t yet looked away.


	5. Of a New Deal

The door supported Alex’s weight as he sank back against it. Thoughts flashed by at a thousand miles a minute. He couldn’t focus on anything except that smell, the rain that had followed him from desert to desert, warzone to warzone. 

He rubbed a hand down his face. It can still be a hallucination, he told himself, it had to be. Maybe he remembered the smell from high school, from the few times he’d been near Michael, and had recalled it as some pain-induced psychosis. There was no reason to think Michael was anything other than a brash, loud-mouthed asshole with a chip on his shoulder a mile wide.

Michael wasn’t the being that he conjured, no matter what the facts insinuated – no matter that they had, the three of them, returned so soon after that night.

Michael hadn’t healed his broken bones, his cuts and bruises. Hadn’t carried him away from his father’s house for the last time. Hadn’t kissed his forehead in a tortuous reminder of all that Alex wanted once, and couldn’t have. 

And yet, in the deepest, most secret part of Alex’s mind, the possibility made sense. 

That scared him most of all. 

He shrugged out of his jacket, digging into the pocket for his phone. And the USB that he had pilfered with a quick sleight of hand when he slammed the twenty down. A weird, useless skill that his father had berated him for, yet here he was armed with a weapon that could bring him down. 

Tossing them on the table to be problems for the morning, he found his way to the living room. Though objectively comfortable, Alex had yet to sleep in the bed or use the bedroom. If he wanted rest, the bed wouldn’t provide it. 

Shimmying out of his jeans, he unlatched the mechanism holding his leg in place, sat it aside, and removed the liner. He curled up on the couch under a throw quilt and closed his eyes, but sleep evaded him. The only thing he saw, utterly against his will, was the presence – Michael. His soul cried out in desperation for that overwhelming sense of safety. 

Angrily, Alex pushed away from the couch and wiped at the tears that spilled down his cheeks. 

A voice that sounded distinctly like his father mocked him for how weak he was, how he couldn’t handle a few harsh words or one single difficult situation.

He dug the palms of his hands into his eyes. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he muttered.

The resulting silence cut far deeper than his own self-loathing. 

He considering calling Maria or Kyle, either would still be awake at this ungodly hour, but what could he say to explain this? How he could pull back that curtain and reveal how broken he really was?

No, he was well and truly alone. Wrapping his arms around himself, not looking at anything in particular, he sat in miserable isolation. 

At the first tendrils of daybreak stretching through the window, Alex uncurled. Opting to use his crutch rather than his prosthetic, he found his way outside with the quilt to his lounge chair and settled back to watch the sunrise. Tucked underneath the warmth, he held his breath, waiting for the firebird to reappear.

The explosion of color, of violets and oranges, of wings outstretched lighting up the night sky with sunlight, settled like a balm over his wounded soul. That something so beautiful still existed was all the proof Alex needed that he could keep going.

He kept his attention skyward, watching until the flames faded into mornings. Whispering his thanks, he found the strength to go back inside.

Back to Isobel, Project Shepard, and the data he stole.

Time to get to work. 

The USB taunted Alex. Laying on the table, unassuming, it taunted him. He could grab his computer, his military grade one, insert the drive, and look. Three easy steps. Simple.

But he couldn’t do it. 

It contained the potential to answer every question, every riddle, about the Evans twins. Michael Guerin. His own father.

Yet, no matter how hard he tried, the connection between his brain and body split apart when he even thought about looking at the information regarding Project Shepherd. As if some supernatural force had severed it.

“Fuck,” he muttered, disrupting the sacrosanct silence that had enveloped the house. A senseless act of violence. “Fuck.”

He grabbed the infernal thing, and stormed into his bedroom. He keyed open the safe in the back of his closet and tucked it inside. Whatever force that kept him from using it might not be so picky with the next person who came along. Muttering to himself, he walked into the kitchen to fix breakfast. 

Coffee in hand, he settled at the dining room table. Though the USB wasn’t an avenue open to him, he could still dig into Project Shepherd through his military connections. It gave him something focused and tangible to direct his attention, so he couldn’t think on the implications of certain other revelations. 

The sunlight slowly inched across the table as he worked and hit dead end after dead end. The project had come up during mission briefings, he was sure of it, but all mention of it on official channels had been scrubbed. Someone didn’t want it found. He would have to dig on the more illegal side, tapping into back networks, to follow the process of data scrubbing. 

He bit back a sigh. Designing a program would take time, running it even more so. It would take days, if he was lucky.

An angry pounding startled him. 

Slowly, he unfolded himself from the chair and limped around to work the kinks out. The pounding echoed again, more insistent. He checked the camera before unlocking the door.

Isobel barged inside, dressed to the nines and fuming. “Where is our drive, Manes?” She whirled on him, invading his space with a focused anger. “I know you took it. Where is it?” 

In that instant, Alex saw her as that first being he encountered that night in the desert. The one who was so disappointed he wasn’t dead. Maybe his comparing her to a wild predator hadn’t been far off. “It’s safe.”

Her eyes flashed fire. “Don’t lie to me!”

Alex instinctively stepped back. In his experience, raised voices led to physical violence. And he would not go quietly, just as he hadn’t in his last encounter with his father. Fighting Isobel was the least desirable outcome, so he attempted to defuse the situation. “I’m not lying,” he told her. “It’s here – the safe in my room.”

The fire faded to a smolder. “It wasn’t yours to take.”

“Is that you talking? Or your brother?”

Isobel groaned. “Michael has an attitude and mouth to match. And he’s deathly allergic to having a filter.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You can rest assured when I speak, I speak for myself.”

“Then why not let me do what we talked about me doing?” 

“You were just supposed to a hired hand,” Isobel practically shouted. “This isn’t your fight, Manes!”

“You don’t understand,” Alex pleaded, his leg trembling. “I _have_ to look into this.”

Isobel’s breathing evened out, the muscles in her face relaxed, softened. She guided him back to the living room with gentle touch and motioned to the couch. “Sit down, before you fall down. And walk me through what you’re talking about.”

Alex sank gratefully onto the cushions, let his weight distribute somewhere other than his leg and the crutch rest beside him. He folded his hands, shaping them, twisting them, and sighed. 

“Whatever your motivations for meeting with me at the start, they’ve changed,” Isobel said quietly, when she realized he wasn’t going to open up willingly. “When Michael told you about your father.”

Words got stuck in his throat, trapped on his tongue.

“You do not want to dig into Project Shepherd for us anymore. Not entirely.”

Not looking up, afraid of what he might see in her eyes, Alex shook his head. 

“What did he do to you?”

Alex snapped to attention, the world spinning around him as his balance took a momentary hit. “I never said – ”

“You didn’t have to,” she replied, her voice soft. “Few things will drive a son to turn on his father, and you only have a soul for one.”

There wasn’t enough time in the universe to unpack _that_ sentence, not that he particularly wanted to. Some part of him, larger than it’s ever been, cried out for him to unload every single sin his father visited on him, to let someone else share in that burden. But not to Isobel, who he barely knew, who he wasn’t quite sure was human.

“No one knows?” Isobel asked. “Not even – ?”

“No one wanted to know.” 

That confession sat heavy between them, a difficult condemnation of his friends and an uncomfortable admission to a near stranger. 

Alex wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – ”

Isobel waved off the apology. “I should be the one saying that. For Michael’s anger and my assumptions.”

A weak smile tugged at Alex’s lips. “I’ll reiterate. No one knew. It’s not something you bring up grabbing drinks at the Pony. My friends guessed, but never asked.” He met her gaze squarely. “How could I have expected you to know?”

Isobel regarded him with something bordering on respect. “You are a singular human being.” The gears rotated in her head, clunking against each other prominently enough Alex could almost hear them. “I will make you a deal.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. A deal had gotten him into some manner of trouble that fed into this. Could he trust getting into another deal? Could he live with himself if he walked away and let his father go unhindered? He knew the answers before he’d even asked the questions. He closed his eyes. “What are the terms I’d be agreeing to?”

“I will let you make a copy of the data on the drive – Michael will raise a fuss if I come back without it – and I will let you look into Project Shepherd,” she started. 

There was a catch coming. In deals like this, there was always a catch. Alex steeled himself for it.

Isobel’s expression hardened. “But you will do it alone.” 

He blinked. That…was not at all what he expected. “What about your people, the ones you thought were taken?”

She turned her gaze to the window. “You’re not the only person I’ve made deals with over this project, Alex. Those deals came first. They’re older, more powerful. Whatever fallout comes from Project Shepherd will be ours to wrestle with.”

If Alex needed evidence for the supernatural, Isobel was handing it to him in spades. Not that he had any idea what to do with it. “Fair enough. Specify exactly what you mean by doing it alone.”

Isobel turned thoughtful. “Let’s see…we do not want any information you gather from hacking into their networks. Our interactions from this point forward can have nothing to do with Project Shepherd. If you confront any member of the project, if the police or government come after you, you will receive no assistance. And, though I won’t include this in the deal, you should probably lose my number.”

“Well, since that’s not a part of the deal, consider it ignored,” Alex retorted. “As for the rest, you’ve got a deal.”

Her smile radiated pure joy. “Oh, you are a delight.” 

“I’m so glad you approve,” he muttered.

She only laughed, loud and bright. 

He retrieved the USB from the safe, its weight solid and steady in his hand. With Isobel at his side, the strange interference stayed silent. When his brain wanted to put the drive into the computer and open the files, his body responded. Whatever power lay in the deal he’d just made, it utterly overrode anything else. 

A quick drag and drop, a few silent moments of watching the computer’s progress bar slowly tick toward complete that bordered on awkward, and the USB was back in Isobel’s hand.

She paused, collecting her thoughts. “Thank you, Alex. No matter why you’re doing this, or what you find, I’m glad it was you DeLuca reached out to.”

Her gratitude warmed him, underlaid by vague traces of that safety he recalled so vividly. He held up his hand. “Nope, we made a deal. The next time I call you, it’ll be for drinks.”

Her smile, though sharp, took on a teasing edge. “Deal.”

Alex walked her to the door. 

Without another word, she got in her car and drove away.

He had the strange feeling he’d made a friend in Isobel Evans, however unique that friendship might turn out to be.


	6. Of Breakdowns and Make Ups

Alex hated puzzles passionately, more so if he missed several pieces. Despite the objective progress he’d made digging into Project Shepherd, despite the files upon files Isobel and Max had collected, he was no closer to actionable answers.

He called Maria, stepping away from his computer to rest his overworked eyes. He rubbed them until stars flashed in his vision while the line rang. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up with a migraine, which would set him back another day. 

“Alex!” Maria said as the call connected. “I just knew you’d be calling.”

“Tell me I’m not that predictable.”

She laughed. “You’re like a dog with a bone. You’ll gnaw and gnaw until there’s nothing left, then you reach out.” 

Alex thought back on the last few days of endlessly trudging through missing persons’ reports, redacted military documents, and Isobel’s personal notes, while designing a backdoor program to search military databases for any mention of Project Shepherd that could counter every security roadblock thrown at it. He had to set timers to remind himself to eat and sleep. Maria’s description wasn’t too far off the mark. “Fine,” he said, “maybe I am that predictable.”

“It’s okay,” she reassured him. “What can I do for you this morning? How’s the research going?”

“I keep hitting dead ends,” he said. “And I need a sounding board.” He needed a rubber duck – the classic solution to every programmer’s problem – but he refused to call Maria a rubber duck. Not to her face.

She clicked her tongue. “Sometime this afternoon good? I have to go to the bank, work through deed paperwork for the bar since Mom’s retiring.”

“Yeah, of course. You need anything?”

“Focus on one thing at a time, Cap,” she said, chuckling. “I appreciate the offer, but I think I can handle some smarmy white guy.”

Alex shook his head and smiled. Maria always fought her own battles. He loved it about her, but it didn’t stop him from trying to help out.

“Do me a favor though,” she added. “Get out of the house. Go for a drive, clear your head.”

Alex laughed. “Is that your professional advice?”

“Don’t try me, Manes,” she warned, but Alex heard the smile in her voice. “I’ll call when I’m done.”

Her idea as good as any he’d had, Alex cranked the car up, wincing at the pitiful sounds it made. He knew a handful of remote spots he could drive to in a couple of hours, where he could sit and think. Or sit and appreciate the world around him. Whichever suited him.

He was almost two hours outside of Roswell when the car gave up the fight and puttered to a stop on the side of the road. 

Biting back a long stream of eloquent curses, he grabbed his phone. The signal strength hovered at barely registering, which left him with texting as his only method of communication. 

**Alex: Car broke down, need a ride**

**From Maria: It’ll be a bit. Are Kyle or Liz available?**

**Alex: Kyle’s on a 24, Liz works til 6**

**From Maria: Can you sit tight safely until I get there? Should be 2 ish**

**Alex: It’s the middle of nowhere. I’m good**

Good translated to quickly vacating the car before he roasted and sheltering beside it beneath his jacket. It wasn’t much shade, but it was all he had. 

He stared out across the desert. Appreciating the moment to step away from the problems he was chewing on, he let everything fall away to focus on the various sights and sounds and smells. It wasn’t long before he could only focus on how sweltering it was and the sweat dripping down his neck, plastering his hair to his forehead. 

A heavy rumble of a car engine approached, the only sign that civilization could encroach out this far. Alex hoped this stray wanderer would see the dead car on the side of the road and stop, but he was tucked out of view from the road. A driver wouldn’t see him.

The rumble settled into a roar, rattled close, and, just as quickly, faded into the distance. He thunked his head against the car door and sighed. 

Shit. Just…shit.

He checked his phone once more before turning it off to save battery. Maria should be here in another couple of hours. He huddled underneath his jacket, content to wait. He didn’t have much choice.

He’d almost fallen asleep when the rumble grew louder again and stopped. A door opened, slammed shut. Footsteps crunched against the gravel. 

“There an idiot out here with the car? Or am I talking to myself?”

Alex sighed. Of course, it had to be Michael. He mentally kicked himself for not recognizing that rickety old truck by sound alone. He used to know it so well. 

With how poorly their last conversation – their only conversation, Alex forcefully self-corrected, not allowing his suspicions about _that_ night factor into his thinking – went, his mind immediately followed this through to the worst possible outcome. A few quick, barbed insults, and Michael would leave him. Still, the thought of sitting out in the desert under the scorching sun longer than necessary forced his hand. He replied, “Yeah, there’s an idiot.”

Michael rounded the car, took in the sight of him sitting in the sand with his back to the car with no small amount of disdain. “What happened, Private? You fall and can’t get up?”

Alex resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Only just. “Nah, didn’t feel like sitting in an oven for hours on end.” He slapped the side of the car. “Besides, this was the best shade I could find.”

Michael squinted up at the sun. “That’s – that’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

Shielding his eyes, Alex looked up. “You sound so surprised. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Oh, you have no idea what disappoints me,” Michael taunted, almost in a singsong voice. 

The tone alone pushed Alex’s buttons, like the opening of the seals on the apocalypse. “I got a pretty damn good idea the other night,” he snapped.

Silence stretched between them, heavy and uncomfortable, and Alex refused to break it. The ball wasn’t in his court now.

Michael stepped toward him. Before Alex could flinch away from another jagged comment or physical blow, Michael simply reached his hand out. When Alex didn’t immediately take it, he waggled his fingers. “You comin’, or what?”

Gratitude fueling the motion, Alex gripped the proffered hand tight, let Michael pull him to his feet. He staggered forward as he got his leg under him.

If Michael noticed the limp, he didn’t mention it.

“So, how’d you end up in bumfuck Egypt with a busted ride?”

Alex leaned against the hood of the car, swaying as the world spun.

Sturdy hands caught him. “Scratch that,” Michael amended. “How long have you been out here without water?”

“What time is it?” Alex asked, pointedly not thinking about how safe having Michael’s arms steadying him felt. 

“Close to 3?”

That was later than Alex expected. Maria should have been here by now. “Almost three hours.”

Michael’s voice was suddenly much closer, far too close. “I got water in the truck. And the AC’s never been reliable, but I keep a fan in the bed.”

Water and moving air were about as close to heaven as Alex could get. “Yeah, sounds good.”

Michael guided him to the back of the truck and, ensuring Alex wasn’t about to fall over, unlatched the truck bed. He patted it. “Can you make it up?”

At least the truck bed wasn’t as high off the ground as it was on newer models. Alex climbed up without much difficulty, watching jealously as Michael leapt up with ease and started digging through the gear. 

“Here,” Michael said, handing him the fan before climbing further into the bed.

Alex switched it on and closed his eyes, relishing the feel of the cool breeze blowing across his sweat-drenched hair. 

“Feeling better, Private?”

Alex cracked open one eye. “Airman,” he said.

Michael paused in his search. “Sorry?”

Alex rested against the side of the truck bed, turning to keep Michael in his sight. “Private is Army,” he clarified. “I was Airforce.”

Michael tossed him a water bottle and grinned. “Whatever you say, Private.”

The comment, though offhand, felt like the creation of an inside joke, an establishment of a pattern that only the two of them would be aware of, or appreciate its meaning. Alex smiled wistfully. Had things been different, he and Michael might have been the friends – or something more – that built upon that. 

Alex twisted off the cap and swallowed half of the bottle before pausing for a breath. 

Hopping to the ground, Michael walked over to Alex’s car and popped the hood.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked.

Michael glanced from the car to Alex. “Gonna take a peek. Why? What’s it look like I’m doing?”

Alex gave him a _look_ at the suggestive tone. “Like you’re about to take a peek.”

“Okay…” Michael dragged the word out. “So, what’s the issue?”

There wasn’t an issue, not really. Alex appreciated the assistance. What he struggled with was why Michael, of all people, seemed so hellbent to help _him_. Liz or Maria or Kyle – he could count on them to help him out, in ways that he both did and did not expect. But Michael? Who, the last time he saw him, implied he was cut from the same foul cloth his father was?

Alex couldn’t understand it. He just said, “Nothing.”

Michael shrugged. “You do you.” He rolled up his sleeves and opened the hood. A few minutes of tinkering, rapidly checking various gears and dials, and he glanced up at Alex. “Tell me you did not pay money for this.”

The spur of the moment decision was always going to come back and bite him in the ass. That it did so where Michael could roast him for it? Well, the universe was having a fucking field day at his expense. Alex leaned forward. “Would it help if I said I didn’t pay _good_ money?”

“Not really.”

“I guess I won’t tell you then.”

“Thought you were supposed to be smart,” Michael muttered.

The comment stung, weaseling into Alex’s brain, feeding his insecurities. “Isobel seemed pretty confident I was. Codebreaking isn’t a dummy sport.”

Michael tensed, the line of his shoulders forming a straight, flat line. 

Having little else to do aside from stare at Michael, Alex got a closer read of him, trying to understand the sudden anger that flared from his return jab. Irritation, frustration – as sources of anger, Alex knew them well. Michael’s was fueled by something else.

Fear.

Alex knew that best of all.

He backtracked, despising himself for causing that in someone else. “I’m just saying we’ve all got our areas of expertise.” He motioned at the car. “Clearly, cars aren’t mine.”

The tension bled away as the corners of Michael’s mouth turned up – the first, honest to God genuine smile Michael had given him. “That much is obvious.”

Alex released a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. 

“Well,” Michael said, slamming the hood, “this baby won’t go anywhere without some TLC that I can’t give it out here.”

Alex wasn’t surprised. That the car hadn’t spontaneously combusted was more than he could have hoped for. “That’s my luck,” he muttered. “Thanks for checking though.”

Michael gave him a weird look, one that Alex couldn’t quite decipher. “I’m offering to tow you to Sanders’,” he said slowly. “Might be able to at least get ‘er up and running.”

Having Michael offer that brought Alex up short, upended his expectations yet again. “I don’t want to impose.”

Michael didn’t look impressed. “What? You got another ride comin’?”

Alex felt a twinge of worry about Maria. “I was supposed to.”

Michael shrugged. “Their loss.” He motioned Alex off the truck bed. “Passenger seat’s open, get up there while I hook this up.”

His leg did not appreciate him putting weight on it. He leaned against the truck, breathing through his nose until the pain faded to a manageable level. “Need any help?”

“Private, you’re about to fall over,” Michael told him. “I got this.”

Alex climbed into the truck and turned on his phone while Michael jerry-rigged a tow cable to his car. Five missed calls greeted him. A quick scan of the transcripts relieved his worry. Maria said she’d gotten hung up with something at the bank and would get Liz out there when she got off shift. 

His signal still wasn’t strong enough to maintain a call, so he texted her.

**Alex: Rain check on the ride, I’ve got one**

**From Maria: Really? Who?**

**Alex: Guerin’s giving me a lift**

**From Maria: Michael Guerin?**

**Alex: Yeah. Why?**

**From Maria: …huh**

**Alex: “Huh?” What’s that supposed to mean?**

**From Maria: Nothing. Just…huh**

Alex tucked his phone back in his pocket, chewing over Maria’s response. She knew Michael better than he did, at least as well as a bartender knew a regular. Was she surprised that Michael was offering a ride at all, or just to Alex? How much of this was just Michael’s unique set of quirks? He didn’t have enough data and would keep spinning his wheels until he had more.

Maria would tell him to just let things play out and stop overanalyzing. That just wasn’t how his brain worked. 

Michael joined him in the cab, cranking the car up. “Roll the window down if you want good air.”

The truck was old enough to have manual windows. Alex huffed in amusement.

“Something funny?”

Alex shook his head, spinning the crank. “No, just can’t remember the last time I saw something not ‘powered’ in a car.”

Michael rubbed the dashboard lovingly. “She’s an oldie, but she’s a goodie.”

The wind blew through Alex’s hair as the truck trundled down the road. He rested his arm against the door, laid his head down to watch the scenery pass by. Michael seemed content to let him be. Even if he wanted to have a conversation, they’d have to shout to be heard.

Alex nodded off once or twice, the stress of the day and working the past few days without much sleep finally catching up to him. If he leaned back into the truck, he could smell the rain. Nowhere near as strong as _that_ night or even at the bar, but still there. 

If that night happened, if the presence that rescued him was Michael – or the other two were Max and Isobel – why did none of them act like it? Did they not remember it? He tucked the questions away to ponder at another time. Hopefully, digging into Project Shepherd would help him answer them.

“Wake up, sleepyhead, we’re here,” Michael said. Without waiting for a reply, he slammed the truck door.

Alex stretched. His arms ached from the lack of blood flow, tingling as they woke up. He gingerly climbed out. 

Michael pointed him to a nearby chair. “Make yourself comfortable. This could take a minute.”

It had been years since Alex had been out to Sanders’ repair shop. Many of the older residents in Roswell swore by him, said he had a magic touch, could repair cars that were in no shape to be repaired. His father brought his car to Sanders only once. Though Alex was young, he remembered the outright animosity between Sanders and his father. It placed Sanders firmly in his list of good people.

Cars and other appliances in various states of dismantling littered the ground. Alex could picture Michael learning how to take things apart and put them back together. This was a sacred space, a safe place. Strangely, Alex felt more at home here than he did in his own house. 

The sun had lit the sky on fire and disappeared behind the horizon before Michael finished. He slammed the hood shut, grabbing the rag hanging over the side mirror and wiping the grease off his hands. “That’s the best I can do,” he said. “Honestly, you should probably just replace the motor. Or, better yet, the whole car.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Alex replied, laughing.

Michael settled in the chair next to him, the shadow of a smile on his face. “You able to pay now or should I take a rain check?”

“Cash, check, or card?”

The question threw Michael. He took a second to reply. “Check should be fine. Can you handle 300?”

Alex had his checkbook in hand already. “I could handle that setback,” he said, nodding at the car. He scrawled the information, ripped the check out, and handed it to Michael.

At first, Michael’s eyes widened, then he glared at the check as if he could set it ablaze. He shoved it back at Alex. “I don’t want your fucking charity, Manes.”

_Manes._ Not Private. _Manes._

Alex clutched at the check to keep it from fluttering to the ground. Michael had uttered those same words, so long ago now. Over a guitar instead of a check. He scrambled after him, cursing his prosthetic for slowing him down. 

“Keep your money,” Michael snapped.

“It’s not charity!” Somehow, Michael knew all of Alex’s buttons and was hellbent to push every single one of them. Alex sighed, shoving down the irritation that threatened to overwhelm his ability to reply logically “Look, the way I see it, you asked for 300 for the repair – parts and labor. Right?”

Michael crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s not the amount you wrote –”

“Right?” Alex repeated, not letting Michael derail him.

“Ok, sure.”

“But you also picked me up roadside and towed that piece of shit all the way here.” Maybe it was a cheap ploy. Maybe it was a way to give Michael something beyond what he asked for as a way to say thank you, not that Alex wanted to delve too deeply into why he felt so strongly about doing it. “Have you seen the rates towers charge? Fucking highway robbery.”

Michael hesitated for a moment. “Fine,” he relented.

“See? That wasn’t hard, was it?”

Michael shook his head, but a soft, fond smile appeared on his face. “You are a right son of bitch,” he muttered. “You know that, right?” He took the check from Alex’s outstretched hand, tucked in gingerly in his back pocket. 

Alex recognized the olive branch for what it was. But oh, that smile made his stomach do flips. He couldn’t help returning it. “You gotta find some new insults, Guerin. I’ve been told that for years.”

Pointing at Alex’s car, Michael said, “Make me see that atrocity again and you’ll see how creative I can be.”

Alex’s mouth ran away before his brain could stop him. “That a promise?”

“Yeah, yeah it is, Private.”


	7. Of Discoveries

Alex returned home, his mind clearer than it had been in days, maybe weeks. He held onto Michael’s smile, his laugh, letting them settle somewhere deep inside him. Right next to the smell of rain that had become synonymous with anything and everything Michael. He was in trouble, in ways he never thought he would be, but finally admitting he might not be crazy for thinking Michael was something _else_ opened whole avenues he hadn’t let himself pursue before. 

The Michael that rescued him still had the chip on his shoulder, especially where Max was concerned. But he had been lighter, less targeted in his teasing, more open in his caring. Scraping away at those layers today, Alex had seen glimpses of him underneath the hardened exterior. And he wanted to see more. 

He sighed. Following this through to its logical conclusion led to nowhere good. Pursuing anything with Michael, if that was even possible, would only bring heartache and pain. To both of them. His father would ensure that. 

With a groan, he turned his thoughts elsewhere. Though there was still time in the day to work, especially if he forewent sleep another night, he doubted he could maintain his schedule for much longer. His stomach growled in protestation of the mistreatment he’d put it through. His body on the verge of collapse, he scrounged through his refrigerator for something edible. 

A slice of cold pizza in one hand and a large glass of ice water in the other, he checked his computer. He expected to quickly scan the progress his codebreaking program had made – mostly because he didn’t expect it to have gotten far – but surprisingly, it had cracked through several firewalls and had downloaded cursory data from Project Shepherd’s servers.

He pulled the chair out, his focus solely on the computer screen. However strange that his program should have broken through the roadblocks he couldn’t work around without any assistance, he refused to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it would keep being lucky, maybe he’d have to call Maria again in the morning and actually have that sounding board session they’d intended to have today. 

All thought of sleep forgotten, he dug in. The first set of files were labeled with combinations of numbers and letters, which appeared to be patterned. Four letters, followed by eight numbers, followed by one or two more letters, before one last number. He opened a document and started jotting down notes. 

Certain parts, he could decipher without difficulty. Each file had a string of numbers that corresponded to a date. After browsing the first handful of files, he couldn’t pinpoint the significance. The dates weren’t birth dates or death dates from what he could tell, though large chunks of the files were still redacted. He added it to his notes. 

_Dates?_

The first four letters Alex easily matched to the person’s name. A file starting with AUMA contained information about “Aurora MacKenzie”. The second group of letters stumped him. Some files were marked with an “F”, others with a “D”, “Ph”, “Ps”, or “W”. There were a few others that occurred only once or twice.

At first glance, the last number had no special meaning either. Some files were labeled with a “1” or “2”, while others had a “8” or “9”. Despite the few he scanned, there didn’t appear to be rhyme or reason behind the system.

Alex checked the number of files and blanched. Project Shepherd had personal files for over three thousand civilians. 

He ran a hand through his hair, still sticking in clumps from sweating earlier. “Fuck, Dad, what are you doing?”

On a whim, he alphabetized the list. Scrolling down, he stopped if any of the letter combinations seemed familiar. His heart sank when he found ISEV04142008F8. He opened her file only to find most of the information blacked out. It had her name: Isobel Evans, her gender and age: Female, Age unknown, and a section labeled Abilities: entirely redacted. 

But it was the date that stuck out, one he remembered all too well. For what happened that night and the night after. His high school prom, and Rosa’s death. Something had happened that night that placed Isobel on his father’s radar. 

He quickly added to his notes: _Dates – discovery?_

Max and Michael’s files were labeled with the same date. All three were marked with an “F”. But each had a different ending number. Max had a 6, Michael a 9. Michael’s had an additional red flag – “terrorist threat”. Nothing in his file explained it, but the majority, as with Isobel’s, was redacted. 

His stomach twisting into knots, he searched the list for his friends. Relief washed over him, cool and sweet, when he couldn’t find Kyle or Liz, but he tasted bile when he saw two files whose names he recognized. MADE05252011Ps4 and MIDE07041991Ps7. 

He collapsed against the back of the chair. 

Maria and Mimi. His father had targeted them too.

This was the beginning to a horror movie, something out of the Twilight Zone. He muttered, “Alex, what have you gotten yourself into?”

He had to call Maria, had to warn her. Though every instinct cried out to call Isobel and warn her too, their deal was binding. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t push past the supernatural barrier to make the call. 

His phone rang, jolting him back to the present. Shaking, every nerve suddenly too jittery, he reached for it. 

“Your timing is perfect, Maria,” he said in lieu of a greeting. To his surprise, he kept his voice steady.

“I know it is.” 

Alex paused at her tone, some undercurrent grabbing his attention. It wasn’t a teasing answer it could have been. “Everything okay?”

“Will you still be awake when I close up?” she asked instead of answering.

“Maria,” he said cautiously, “is everything okay?”

She sighed. “No, not anymore.” She called something out to a customer, muffled by her hand. “I’ll come over and we’ll talk.”

“Okay,” he relented, knowing full well he wouldn’t get an answer out of her until she was ready. “Be safe.”

“You too.”

Between the adrenaline spikes and the heat exhaustion, Alex wouldn’t stay awake until Maria arrived without either a nap or pots upon pots of coffee. He opted for the first option to start. If that failed, coffee was always a valid second choice. He set an alarm on his phone and settled onto the couch.

Sleep found him instantly. He closed his eyes in his living room –

And opened them somewhere else entirely. 

Alex found himself in a dark, hazy landscape, as if every shape was formed from shadows. Though his body slept, he wasn’t dreaming. 

There was only one path forward, but he couldn’t see where the path led. Everything faded and shifted, changed and reformed around him. He followed it, mindful of where he stepped, cautious of what was around him. The path opened out into a wide space, stretching far above him. Only when he glanced up did he realize there was no sky, the realm he was in had a ceiling that seemed almost earth-like. 

In the middle of the opening, stretching to the ceiling and beyond, was a giant tree. If he focused, he could see the tree’s branches reaching above the ceiling, as if he could see through it, and he could see the roots if he stared through the ground. Occasional bursts of color, the only color Alex could see, streaked up and down the trunk. Eerie and breathtaking, all at once. 

His gaze fell on a figure tied to the tree, its form registering to his eyes only as emptiness. He recognized it as a presence, his breath catching at the similarity from his memory. It wasn’t Isobel or Max or Michael – he knew that beyond any doubt – but it was like them. 

When it finally noticed it wasn’t alone, it raised its head and regarded him. Alex could reach out and touch its despair, strong enough that he buckled beneath it.

 _Help us_ , it said, its voice weak and fading. _Help us…_

With a gasp, Alex woke up to the alarm ringing out incessantly into the silence, and Maria knocking gently on the door. 

Her gaze was far too understanding and knowing when he let her in. “You’ve seen it,” she said.

He didn’t have to ask what she was referring to. “What is _it_?” 

She walked past him into the kitchen and opened his refrigerator. “Tell me you haven’t touched my stash I left in here.”

Alex followed her, his confusion and frustration bubbling at a near boil. “You mean the horrible stuff you call beer?” he said. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She dug a bottle out and, popping the cap off against the counter, took a hefty chug before sitting the bottle down. “For your question – if you paid attention in high school mythology, you might remember an important aspect of Norse mythology. Yggdrasil.”

“The world tree, a mythical connection between the Nine Realms,” he recited. At her incredulous look, he shrugged. “What? I occasionally found ‘Boring’ Banks interesting.”

“Really? I can still hear his monotonous droning.” She chuckled. “I think I slept through almost every class.”

Alex smiled at the memory before the reality of their situation settled back over him. “How did you know that’s what I saw?”

“I felt it.” For such a simple answer, it opened up an entire realm of unknowns. 

“You felt it?” he repeated. 

She nodded. “We draw power from it – we can feel when it reaches out.”

“Reaches out?” If he kept parroting her words back at her, he would turn into a real, broken record. 

Her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s alive, conscious in its way. Mom used to tell me stories of feeling it reaching out, bringing someone else into the fold. It happened all the time.” She glanced down, her voice trailing off. “She doesn’t mention it much anymore.” 

Alex stared out into nothing, not really focusing on anything. “Why did it reach out to me?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “But I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

If they hadn’t had giant, red targets on their backs before, they certainly did now. Though he still had infinitely more questions than answers, he could be sure in that knowledge. He turned to her. “Answer me honestly. What are you?”

Maria took another swig of beer. “I’m a psychic, Alex. My mother too.”

The letters on her file, on Mimi’s file. _Ps_. Shit. “My father knows that.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

He motioned to the computer. Taking a seat, with Maria hovering over his shoulder, he pulled up the files. Hers and her mother’s. 

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Alex, what is this?”

“This,” he showed her the long list of files, “is the start of what Isobel Evans wanted me to look into.”  
Maria leaned against the table for support. “I had a vague idea you needed to help her, but I had no idea this is what you’d find.” Her gaze was open, eager. “This might be why the Tree reached out to you.”

Alex stared at the files, at the thousands of lives he was now somehow responsible for, knowing this was only the surface of what his father was doing. The most important question, the one he couldn’t voice – not in front of Maria, was whether or not his father was behind the loss she and her mother experienced. Was he hunting these people? If so, why?

“Walk me through this,” Maria said, dragging over a chair. “Start at the beginning.”

He filled her in to the best of his ability, from his meeting with Isobel that she had set up until today. He left out his encounter in the desert – that felt too raw, too private. 

“I don’t understand. Why are they looking into this?” she asked. 

Without saying a word, Alex pulled up their three files. “I don’t know if they know about this,” he said, “but they’re looking into missing persons. I haven’t correlated those reports to these files yet, but I’m willing to bet they’ll be in here.” He turned to her. “When you called earlier, you already knew something was wrong. Was this what you expected?”

“No.”

He pushed the computer away, breaking Maria’s focus. “Why call me then? Right as I was about to call you?”

“Something shifted,” she said. “I know that’s vague, but it’s all I’ve got. Your cracking into this Project Shepherd has set something in motion, and I’m afraid where it’ll lead.”

“Should I stop?” he asked. He didn’t know if he could abandon this, if he could let everything he’d uncovered even in the past few hours go without a fight, but if Maria thought it was for the best, he would try. To protect those he loved.

“It wouldn’t help.”

“Why not?” Alex clung desperately to the hope he could walk away. He could forget Project Shepherd. He could forget Isobel and Max Evans. He could forget Michael Guerin. 

_Protect him._

As if she could read where his thoughts went, she looked deep into his eyes and into his soul. “Because those connections have already been formed. They can be challenged, changed, bent – never broken.”

His mind helpfully recalled the brush of lips in his hair, the smell of rain that he would never forget. He had been damned before he even knew he was going to hell. At least he might be able to enjoy the trip.

Maria broke the moment’s spell, pushing the chair away from the table comically loudly. “Enough of this for the night. There’ll be time for heavy shit in the morning.”

“What’d you have in mind?”

She waved her empty beer bottle. “Trash TV and beer until we both pass out?”

He laughed, content to follow her and let his program continue its work. As they settled, he finally asked a question that had been weighing on him. “So, if you’re a psychic, how did you lose that bet to Valenti?”

She nudged his shoulder. “It’s not perfect.”

“That much is obvious.”

Alex relished the moment of lightness, of camaraderie. He doubted the universe would be kind enough to let him have many more.


	8. Of Raised Stakes

Maria was on the phone when Alex woke a few hours later. She mumbled an apology and walked into another room.

Sunlight streamed in through the windows. He stretched and yawned, willing his body to wake up.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” Maria said, sitting down next to him, clutching her phone.

He ruffled his hair until it stopped sticking up at odd angles. “Don’t worry about it,” he reassured her. “Anything wrong?”

She groaned. “More paperwork with the bank. I swear, I could get a job handling classified material for less trouble.”

“That’s more accurate than you know.”

Worry lined the creases of her eyes as tears welled in them. Whatever hoops the bank was having her jump through, they were wearing her down.

Alex reached for her hand. “Are you sure you’ve got this?”

She nodded, squeezing his hand. “Yeah.” Wiping her eyes, she added, “Besides, you’ve got your own problems. And I think you’ve got me beat.”

“Call if you need anything, okay?”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “Alex, I’ve got a bad feeling about today. You take care of yourself. Watch your back.”

They parted ways, Maria planting a soft kiss to his cheek before she got in her car. 

Her final warning, to watch his back, rang loudly in his ears.

Stepping away from Project Shepherd and last night’s discoveries seemed like a sound plan for the day. His car needed another check, probably another engine. Despite Michael’s best efforts, it had whined and complained, though to a lesser extent than when he bought it, the entire drive home. He cranked the car, breath held as he waited for what the monstrosity would do.

The engine purred, no evidence of the temper tantrum it had thrown the day before. Alex eyed the hood of the car warily. “What bullshit are you planning today?” he asked.

As if it would answer.

Satisfied after a few minutes that it might last to town and back, Alex braved taking it out on the road. If he stayed in town, or close to it, a rescue would be less of an issue.

His stomach rumbling, he opted to stop for breakfast at the Crashdown and see Liz first. He hadn’t seen her or Kyle since…well, since everything started, and he wanted a little normalcy. Pulling into an empty spot, he climbed out of his car. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a couple watching him intently, only to glance away quickly when he turned.

He walked into the diner, already bustling at this time of morning. He examined his surroundings quickly, efficiently, and spotted a handful of patrons staring at him startle like children with their hands caught in the cookie jar and return to their food.

Alex chided himself for his paranoia, for letting his military training convince him he always needed to check over his shoulder. But he couldn’t shake the eyes that followed him as walked to the counter.

Liz grinned when she saw him. “Alex! What can I get you?”

He slid onto the nearest stool, helpless to stop from grinning too. “The usual.”

“I’m not warming up the machine for your atrocious combo of chocolate shake and fries,” she teased. “But I got you a breakfast special coming right up.”

The eyes remained. Some of the diners watched him, some of the passersby as well. Alex refused to squirm, had learned far too young that squirming meant beating, but he couldn’t hide how uncomfortable he was. If he had marched in with a boyfriend on his arm, he doubted the scrutiny would have been this severe. Even in a town like Roswell.

Watch your back, Maria had said. 

He trusted her. That was true before last night, before he knew her truth, and remained true in the face of it. Her poor betting record notwithstanding, he trusted her insight. 

Liz slid his food across the counter. “You’re awfully quiet this morning.”

He offered her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Just a lot on my mind.”

“Keeping busy since you got home?”

There was so much he hadn’t told her, everything about Isobel and Michael. Max. His father. He needed to find the time to sit her down and have that very difficult conversation. A crowded diner where malevolent gazes tracked his every move was not the place for it.

“More than I expected.” At least that was the truth.

Liz’s brow furrowed. “Not overworking yourself are you?”

Alex had to laugh at that. His stomach grumbling cut off any attempt at replying.

She smiled. “Eat up, Cap.”

Not needing to be told twice, he dug in. He polished off the eggs and bacon without a second thought. 

He was halfway through the breakfast burrito when a hand gripped his shoulder. He almost jumped out of his skin at the contact, clenching his fist to defend himself if necessary.

The hand squeezed tighter. “No need for that here, sonny.” 

Alex tensed despite recognizing Sanders’ voice. His brain remembered that Sanders was good people; his body – and the adrenaline pumping through his veins – needed reminding. 

Sanders climbed onto the seat next to him, stole bites of food off his plate. “How’s that car of yours running?” he asked around mouthfuls. 

“Honestly? Like a dream,” Alex replied, still watching him warily. “You taught Guerin well.”

“The boy’s got skill,” Sanders said. “But I’d bet money that’s not why it’s working better all of a sudden.”

Alex stilled, his fork frozen halfway to his mouth. “What are you talking about?”

Sanders grabbed the fork from his hand and sat it down. “Let me guess, about half the people in here have been watching you, and you got no idea why.”

A shiver ran down Alex’s spine. “You know something about that.”

Sanders lowered his voice. “It’s not safe here,” he said. “But they’ll leave you alone as long as you’re with me.”

“Who are they?” Alex asked, keeping his voice low too.

“Not here.” Sanders slid from his seat, nudged the door open to walk to his car. When Alex failed to follow, he looked back over. “You comin’ or what?”

Tossing a twenty on the counter, silently begging Liz to forgive him for ditching her, Alex scrambled to catch up. 

“I’ll see you at the shop,” Sanders said. “Stay right behind me, you hear?”

The instinct to bark a “yes, sir” was too engrained in his bones, his very DNA, to reign it in before he said it. 

Sanders only shook his head, regarding Alex with his one good eye, with sadness that bordered on pity. It crawled underneath Alex’s guard and stoked irritation and fury.

More than enough people, when they saw his leg – his prosthetic, tiptoed around him with kiddie gloves, pity the only emotion they were capable of showing him. Fewer did so for his military upbringing, but it happened. He despised it. 

He had every reason to not follow Sanders out to the car shop. His house, now thoroughly fortified, would be a safe haven. But he did not have a Sanders, who admittedly kept those watching him at arm’s length. 

Dust covered their path as the two cars carved their way through the desert down empty roads. Though Alex had just been to the shop yesterday – had it only been yesterday? – the vice around his chest eased as he crossed the threshold into the repair yard. 

As if anything related to Michael – and Alex knew full well it was Michael – brought a sense of safety.

Sanders exited his car first, Alex following seconds behind. Without a word, they walked into Sanders’ house. 

Alex had never been inside the house before, had only seen inside the office the one time as a child. Nothing much stood out. 

Except for a small picture hanging above the archway to the kitchen of a tree which Alex had recently become familiar with.

“You want a drink?” Sanders asked, halfway inside the refrigerator.

Breakfast still sitting heavy on his stomach after his sudden departure, Alex replied, “I’ll pass.”

“This ain’t about to be an easy conversation,” Sanders told him, retrieving two bottles. “You might wanna accept the offer.” He held one out.

Rolling his eye skyward, Alex motioned Sanders for it.

Sanders popped off the cap and handed it to him. “Jesse Manes is a shit pile of a human being.”

Alex sputtered at his frankness. Of all the ways he expected the conversation to start, that wasn’t it. 

Sanders regarded him coolly. “Hate to burst your bubble, kid, but I’ve learned it pays to be blunt up front.”

If that’s the way today was going to go… 

Taking a swig of beer, grimacing as it went down, Alex said, “I knew what kind of person my dad was before you did. He wasn’t shy about disciplining with his fists.” He glared at Sanders, daring him to comment, daring him to back down.

“Fuck,” Sanders muttered, shaking his head. “You give as good as you get, huh?”

Setting the bottle on the counter, Alex crossed his arms over his chest. “You didn’t drag me out here to rehash my crappy childhood. Why was everyone watching me in the diner?”

Sanders sighed. “You’re a threat now – they were sizing you up.” 

A threat? “Tell me this isn’t about the Tree.”

“Got it in one.” 

Maria knowing about his dream, about Yggdrasil reaching out to him, that didn’t bother him. Sanders knowing about it? Those watching him in town? That terrified him. Every meeting, every conversation, since then, Alex started on the defensive. Everyone knew more than he did – he was entering a world he didn’t understand, playing a game whose rules he hadn’t yet learned. 

He couldn’t catch up if he didn’t ask questions. “How did you know?” 

Sanders leaned in close. “Every single supernatural being felt it call to you. Most may not understand what it means, but they will damn well be trying to find out.”

Alex craned his neck to not break eye contact. If Sanders felt it, that meant… “What does it mean?”

Sanders chuckled. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

“Then help me ask the right ones,” Alex countered. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

There was no small amount of pride in the way Sanders looked at him. He chugged a healthy portion of his beer. “What do you know about the Fae?”

Even after what he’d seen in Project Shepherd’s files, Alex’s jaw dropped. “Fae? As in fairies?” He wouldn’t admit it – not to Sanders, not yet – but that lined up with lettering on some of the files. _F._

Sanders snorted. “Don’t let hundreds of years of bad books and movies and shit give you the wrong impression. Fae are incredibly powerful, incredibly dangerous. But think of them like oil in a car. You can’t run the car without them, but you look at them wrong – they explode.” 

Thinking of the long list of names, of how few had an “F” by them, of Max and Isobel – Michael, Alex shivered. Powerful and dangerous – that he could believe. “And if the car runs out of oil?”

“Then the World Tree dies. And every other supernatural being loses their powers – we become human. Mundane.” 

Could this be his father’s goal? Trying to kill Yggdrasil to eradicate non-human beings? Was he that depraved? Giving himself a mental shake, he disregarded that last question. Of course, Jesse Manes – the man who tried to beat heterosexuality into his son – would see this world of beauty and wonder and try to end it.

Sanders nodded. “I see you’re working through the implications. Terrifying, right?”

Alex shook his head, rattling the disparate thoughts into something resembling a coherent story. “That still doesn’t explain me.”

“Does it not?” 

Biting back his frustration, Alex said, “Not the way you’re explaining it, no.”

Sanders merely raised an eyebrow. “While you’re thinking it through, feel free to help yourself to what’s in the pantry. You might need the sugar to get those neurons firin’.” He slammed the screen door closed and headed out to work on a customer’s car.

Alex watched him work, willing his mind to settle. Sanders was confident he’d given Alex the pieces he needed to figure out the mystery in front of him. 

Come on, Alex, he chided himself. You’re smarter than this.

He cleared off his mental working space and laid out what he knew.

Isobel and Max, and Michael, had to be Fae. Yes, the letter attached to their files matched, but their mannerisms…single-minded determination, making deals. The ring of stones…where Isobel had claimed him as theirs. Michael’s use of power – or was it magic? – to heal him. The pieces fit. 

But if fairies powered Yggdrasil, why did it call him as he looked into Project Shepherd? 

Because he was protecting them?

Did the Tree call to him to look after its own?

Still – why him? He wasn’t the person to protect anything. The atrocities he’d committed – the blood on his hands – he was incapable of providing protection. Not in the way this mythical creation seemed to think. 

It had chosen the wrong man.

Alex glanced out the screen door, startled to not see Sanders anywhere. He pushed outside, grimacing at the wall of heat he walked into. Not finding Sanders at the one car in the garage, he walked over to the building that functioned as an office. 

The office was dark, almost pitch black. Spots swam in his vision as his eyes adjusted. He saw a Sanders-shaped outline rummaging through the desk with frantic movements. “Something’s wrong.”

“I thought we’d have more time,” Sanders said, ceasing his searching and glancing nervously outside. 

Alex followed the movement, every nerve on high alert. “What do you need me to do?”

“Just know that you now have a choice. You can choose to follow your heart,” Sanders said, jabbing a finger into Alex’s chest with enough force to bruise. “Or, you can follow your daddy, go against everything you know is right.”

Alex gently pushed Sanders’ finger away, met his gaze head-on. “You and I both know that’s no choice.”

Sanders held up a hand in warning. “Don’t do this hastily. You start down this road, boy, and you never go back.”

How many roads had he traveled that the same warning could be said about? Alex rubbed his leg, a reminder of the decade of his life he lost to the military, to becoming someone he couldn’t recognize in the mirror. Maybe those roads prepared him for this, led him here. “If my father’s involved, I’ve been on it for most of my life.”

“Maybe you have been,” Sanders agreed quietly. He closed his eyes, silently coming to a decision. “You stay down, stay hidden, you hear? Do not leave this office no matter what. Understand?”

Alex nodded, fear sticking the words in his throat. The reality of what was happening heightened his senses, stretched out the seconds. In those precious moments, he found himself back in a warzone, sending yet another mad out on a suicide mission. He thought he’d left that life behind.

“You take care of Michael. He’s a good kid, little rough on the edges. No matter what he says, or does, look after him for me.” Sanders squeezed his shoulder before guiding him to one corner. “Good luck,” he said, before walking outside. It sounded like a final goodbye.

Alex squeezed down into the spot, shallowing out his breathing to better track voices, footsteps. But he heard nothing – no voices, no vehicles, no altercation. 

Just oppressive, unending silence. 

The certainty of Sanders’ loss sat acrid on his tongue. He wrapped his arms around his legs, resting his forehead on his knees. His body trembled, anger setting fire to his veins that the universe could be so horrid and cliched. He knew in his bones who was behind this.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

He lost track of how long he sat there. Waiting – praying. 

Until the familiar rumble of Michael’s truck grew louder.

Michael stormed into the office, his face a cloud of fear and fury. “Sanders! Where are you?” He spotted Alex curled in on himself between the counter and the wall. “What the _fuck_ are you doing here?”


	9. Of Unexpected Fallout

Alex struggled to rise, his legs aching and tingling from maintaining such an uncomfortable position. The last thing he needed, or wanted, was to face a terrified and furious Michael Guerin at a tactical disadvantage. Even if he refused to resort to violence – no matter the provocations. 

And he had no idea what provocations to expect.

“Where’s Sanders, Manes?” Desperation tugged at the edges of Michael’s voice. 

Alex barely noticed Michael’s use of his name. “He’s gone,” he croaked out, forcing the words past the fear squeezing his throat closed. “He’s gone.”

Static crackled. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

Alex clenched his fist, drove it into the desk – a relief valve for the frustration threatening to boil over. Frustration at Michael, at himself, at his inability to do anything. “I mean gone. Kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” Michael repeated, incredulous. “Why didn’t you do something?”

It was the same question Alex had tortured himself with. Why hadn’t he done something? Why hadn’t he helped Sanders when it mattered most? He kept coming back to the same answer – the only answer really. “He asked me not to.” It sounded weak, even to him.

“He – he asked…” Michael stuttered. “He wouldn’t do that.”

Alex fought back the urge to gesture wildly. “I don’t know what you think he would have done, but that’s all I’ve got.”

Michael glared at him, electricity sparking in his eyes. “You should have helped.” 

“What did you expect me to do?” Alex demanded. 

Michael paced, running a hand through his hair. “Something, anything!” He spun on Alex. “Weren’t telling me just yesterday you were smart? You couldn’t figure something out?”

Alex stepped back, putting distance between him and Michael’s ever-increasing volatility. “I didn’t even see or hear what took him. I’m all ears if you have a suggestion.”

Michael froze as the color drained from his face. “You didn’t hear anything?”

“No, not a thing,” Alex confirmed, wondering what meaning that held to frighten Michael so badly. “Sanders didn’t say a word.”

Instead of the rain Alex had already come to associate with Michael, the air reeked of ozone. Michael, drawing the same conclusion Alex had, practically growled, “Project Shepherd. Jesse Manes.”

Alex nodded, not even trying to fight the supernatural pressure that stopped him from saying the words, his deal with Isobel still strong. 

Given time and space to mentally work through what happened, removing Sanders from play was the only move his father could make. Losing Sanders meant Isobel, Max, and Michael lost their protector, and Alex a mentor. He just couldn’t voice that to Michael.

Caught up in his own thoughts, he missed Michael’s eyes narrowing.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

Alex snapped his attention back to Michael. There had been too many revelations in the past twenty-four hours for him to quite follow Michael’s line of thinking. “Sorry?”

The air fell still, a calm before the storm. “But you’re just a good little soldier, aren’t you, always following orders?” Michael sneered.

Alex recoiled, anger and revulsion spurring him on in equal measures. “You better not be saying what I think you are.”

There was no warmth in Michael’s smile. A predator loose and on the prowl, he struck to hurt. “Were you really so desperate to get Daddy’s approval that you’d kidnap an old, unarmed man?”

The thought of helping his father – that Michael immediately jumped to that conclusion – sickened him. He swallowed past the bile burning a hole in the back of his throat.

“That was the plan from the beginning, wasn’t it?” Michael asked. “Get us to trust you, find out what we know.” He fiddled with the hem of his shirt, his fingers trembling. 

“Guerin,” Alex warned. “Stop.” He couldn’t bear to hear anymore, didn’t want to see what Michael might do if he continued down this line of thinking.

“Then you stole our data,” Michael muttered, his voice cracking. “We led you straight to Sanders.” He met Alex’s gaze, his face twisted with betrayal and something bordering on fear and hatred. 

Alex couldn’t let this continue. He couldn’t stand to see Michael look at him like that – like he was something evil. 

The powder keg of Michael’s anger inched closer to exploding, threatening to take him and Alex with it. Electricity sparked along Michael’s skin, dancing in mesmerizing blue and purple lines. It was beautiful in its way, and dangerous. Just like Sanders had said.

Michael might be dangerous, but so was Alex. 

Alex crowded into Michael’s space. He stepped on his leg awkwardly, but he barely registered the pain. It only added to fuel to the fire that, despite his best efforts, he was about to lose control of. “You need to stop talking,” he said, vow pitched low. “I am _not_ working for my father.” 

Michael blinked, a small concession, but enough of an opening to give Alex an advantage.

“You think you know anything about me,” Alex continued. “You don’t know shit.”

“And why should I want to?” The spitfire anger, the electricity so close to escaping containment, cooled to confusion.

Alex considered his question, the desperation behind it. He didn’t have a good answer. Or any answer. In this moment, there was nothing connecting them except teenage Alex’s deeply buried desires and a few angry insults. Even yesterday’s roadside rescue seemed insignificant in light of what they now faced.

If Michael remembered that night, remembered the injuries he’d healed, the angry shouting and swinging fists he’d rescued Alex from, this would be much easier. Those few hours provided plenty of evidence of the rift between Alex and his father.

Why couldn’t Michael remember?

It was a question he should have asked Sanders, but they were on their own now. Two scared, lost and lonely boys too far out of their depth. 

He laid all the cards on the table. “I can’t hold your assumptions against you. I have spent the majority of my life marching to my father’s tune because I didn’t have a choice.”

Michael watched him warily but thankfully said nothing, letting him continue.

“But I have a choice now,” Alex admitted quietly. “And I’m taking it.”

“What are you saying?” 

“You didn’t lead me to Sanders. I was looking into…,” Alex choked on the word, “on my own. Sanders found me this morning, had me come out here to talk through things.” He sighed, closed his eyes. “What happened after – we had no idea it was coming.”

“I don’t believe you.” 

Alex’s heart broke at how lost Michael sounded. “Yeah, I know.”

Michael gripped his shirt, trapping him close, eyes searching for something, some truth in his words that he couldn’t find any other way.

Alex rested his hand on top of Michael’s, a move designed to provide a way to break free if necessary that instead became a gentle expression of understanding. He held Michael’s gaze, willing him to believe him.

Flashes of color sparked in his periphery, and he glanced down.

Lines of colored light danced along their hands, where skin touched skin – the same streaks and bursts that danced along Yggdrasil. They faded into Alex’s skin before disappearing entirely. 

Michael yanked his hand away, staring at it with wide eyes. “That’s not possible.”

Alex rubbed his hand, expecting to feel something from that spectacle but finding only normal skin. He waited for Michael to work through whatever line of thought his brain had fixated on.

“It was you. It called out to you,” Michael said, turning to Alex. “I didn’t realize…did Sanders know?”

Michael’s continuously changing emotions gave Alex whiplash. He nodded before he found his voice. “That’s why he brought me out here.”

“And I accused you of being involved in his kidnapping.”

“You did.”

Michael chuckled weakly. “That was pretty stupid.”

“It was.”

Michael sank into the desk chair, the breath leaving his body in a rush as exhaustion replaced anger. “You know about us then. What we are.”

Alex nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The urge to reach out and smooth away the worry lines almost overpowered his better judgment. He understood too well lashing out when everything spiraled out of control. More than a few doctors and physical therapists had been on the receiving end of his verbal and physical explosions.

Though he had, and would, defend himself when necessary, he refused to blame Michael for such a – well, not exactly human – reaction.

“I don’t know what to do,” Michael whispered.

Alex leaned against the desk to shift the weight off his prosthetic. The stabbing pain eased, leaving a dull ache in its wake. He had no words to offer comfort – knew from experience there were no words that could comfort – but he could strategize. If he was trapped in a 3-D game of chess, he would play to win. “You should tell Isobel and Max.”

“You don’t think – ?”

“After the day I’ve had, I have no idea what to think,” Alex replied. “Better safe though, right?”

Michael fumbled for his phone, walking outside to talk to his siblings.

It gave Alex space to decompress. He leaned forward with an audible sigh. With Sanders gone – Alex refused to think he was dead – he was under no assumptions about their safety. That his father would kidnap someone in broad daylight…Alex shuddered at the implications. And yet, he couldn’t help thinking this wouldn’t have happened if he’d kept his nose clean. 

If he’d left Project Shepherd well enough alone. 

Michael was right, in a way. He may not have been following orders, but he was the reason events unfolded today the way they did.

He’d done this.

His phone buzzed.

**From Maria: Self-flagellation gets you nowhere**

**Alex: Tell that to Sanders**

**From Maria: Remember what I said last night about connections**

**From Maria: This isn’t on you**

Alex clutched the phone to his chest, wishing he could believe her.

Michael threw the screen door open. “Isobel said she’d keep an eye out. Max…well…” He shrugged, slipping back into that casual carelessness that hid a long history.

“Good.” Alex respected Isobel – really and truly liked her. He didn’t want her hurt. Or worse. He wasn’t sure what to make of Max outside of his relation to Isobel and Michael. But he couldn’t wish harm on him either. 

“So what’s next?” 

They were skirting too close to what his deal considered a conversation about Project Shepherd. He couldn’t make his mouth form meaningful words. 

The silence stretched too long, and Michael jumped to conclusions. Wariness edged back in. “Cat got your tongue?”

“We can’t…talk…about it,” Alex managed to grit out.

“Am I missing something?” Michael asked. “I’m missing something.”

Alex closed his eyes, steeling himself for Michael’s response. “I made a deal with your sister.”

“Oh, there are some things I just don’t need to know,” Michael said.

He was back to pushing Alex’s buttons, finding the various ways to annoy him. Alex was certain of it. It gave him hope they would might be okay after this. “Mind out of the gutter, Guerin,” he muttered.

Michael rolled his eyes. “There’s no fun in that.” He walked up to Alex, leaning against the desk beside him, suddenly serious. “It was Project Shepherd, wasn’t it?” he asked, glancing over for confirmation.

Alex nodded.

“She gave you our intel so you could keep digging. What was the counter deal?”

“I keep…working,” Alex said. “But I do it alone.”

Michael groaned. “Why the fuck would you agree to that?”

“Because I have no idea what I’m doing!” Alex snapped, suddenly defensive. “I had no idea what I was getting into. Whatever my dad’s involved in…he’s been at it longer than I’ve been alive. I’m trying to catch up on _decades_.”

“That wasn’t really – ,” Michael started, a strange look on his face. “That’s not what I was asking, Private.”

Alex blinked, completely thrown. Suddenly, he was Private again. It set his heart racing. “No?”

Michael shook his head. Without another word, he reached for Alex’s hand, held it between his.

Alex stared in wonder at the splashes of blue and violet and green that danced from Michael’s hands to his and back. Nothing like this happened with Maria. Or Sanders. 

Just Michael.

It felt significant. 

“That didn’t happen yesterday.” 

Michael squeezed his hand before letting it go.

Instantly, Alex felt colder. More alone. 

“Guessing you hadn’t met the World Tree yesterday,” Michael said, as if the biggest mysteries in the universe just made sense to him.

He shook his head. “That was last night.”

“Sanders said it knows who tries to protect us – kinda a big deal anymore,” Michael explained. “But people forget it’s a two-way street.”

Alex chuckled wryly. “Thirty minutes ago, you were about to tear me apart limb from limb. Now you’re trying to protect me? Wanna walk me through that?”

Michael smiled, embarrassed and lopsided. “Yeah, yeah. I fucked up. Don’t rub it in.”

Alex laughed, couldn’t help himself, the tension from the day bleeding away. Exhaustion would kick his ass later, but he could enjoy the giddiness bordering on hysteria in the transition. He ignored the way Michael looked at him – the wonder, the warmth. That was a path he couldn’t let himself travel. But teasing? He could have that. “Oh, no. You are _never_ living this down.”

Michael groaned. “That’s so unfair.”

“Limb. From limb.”

The lines around Michael’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. He looked away, ducking his head. “You’re gonna keep looking, aren’t you?”

Alex couldn’t answer, but he felt Michael would understand. “Are you?” he asked instead.

“I wish – ,” Michael started, but cut himself off, squeezing his eyes shut. 

Alex laid his hand on top of Michael’s. He hadn’t noticed it before, but it smelled like rain when the colors flashed. Like home.

A phone buzzed, startling them.

Alex checked his first. Nothing. 

Michael reached for his. He frowned at the screen. “It’s Max. He’s driving out.”

“I probably shouldn’t be here when he gets here, huh?” Alex asked. He pushed away from the desk. His leg gave way, and he stumbled forward.

Michael followed the movement. “You safe to drive, Private?”

Alex bit back a grimace. His leg was on fire – thankfully he didn’t need it to drive. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

“Sure?”

“Yes, _Mom_.” Alex knew he was being childish, but it was worth it to get Michael to smile, to erase the memories of earlier.

Michael walked him out to his car, hovered as he got in. He rested an arm on the top of the car. “So I know I promised to come up with more creative insults if I saw this piece of shit again,” he tapped the metal, “but I think we’re past that.”

He couldn’t let him off that easy. “No, I’m still holding you to that.”

Michael pouted. There wasn’t any other word for it.

Alex chuckled, took pity on him. “I’ll give you a pass for today though.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” Michael said, laughing. He leaned in, curls falling into his face. “Stay safe, Private.”

Driving away, cursing every additional inch between them, Alex silently promised that he would get Sanders back. 

For Michael.


	10. Of Traps Set

Chapter 9: Of Traps Set 

Alex found his program had further infiltrated into Project Shepherd’s servers since he’d left that morning. Despite the horrendous events of the day, thankfully he still had some luck left. Luck that had dumped another large cache of files right into his lap. 

Grabbing a slice of pizza of questionable edibility – when exactly had he ordered it again? – he plopped down in front of the computer and dug in. His mind raced in a dozen different directions. First and foremost: how to use this new information to get Sanders back.

He refused to entertain the possibility that Sanders might not be alive to get back.

For Michael’s sake – no, for his father’s sake – Alex hoped that wasn’t the case. 

The first set of files – the set he had already looked through – from what he could tell, documented persons of interest. The second set that his program had downloaded detailed something far worse – those supernatural beings Project Shepherd had detained, many of whom – most of whom – had died from the experimentation and torture. Only a handful here and there were not marked as deceased, their location coded at the tops of their files.

Alex’s heart threatened to run away with his brain, emotion warring with focus. Logically, he knew from the documentation in the first set of files that Project Shepherd had a body count. A high one. But seeing the evidence laid out bare before him? It struck an entirely different chord. 

He closed the folder and kept looking. 

Another set of files detailed the findings from the experiments – the powers each species had and, subsequently, how best to neutralize them. No detail had been left out, no documentation of violence spared.

Alex swayed in his chair, covered his mouth in an attempt to keep from seeing that pizza slice again. His stomach grumbled angrily, but he refused to throw up. He could handle this. He’d handled far worse. 

The experiments went back decades, some close to a century, the earliest under the name of Harlan Manes – his great-grandfather. Some documented drug tests, ranging from standard treatment doses to doses well beyond what would kill a human. Others documented toxins and poisons instead while others still focused on physical harm, or emotional harm.

None of the experiments Alex read through mentioned the colors along his skin, nothing provided any insight into the connection between him and Michael. In a way, Alex was grateful. Not only because the lack of information was a level of protection, but it gave both him and Michael a tactical advantage. They already held information Project Shepherd didn’t.

That had to mean something.

He tried to keep digging, wanted to keep looking, but exhaustion blurred his vision. Despite wiping at his eyes, they stubbornly refused to stare at the computer – at anything, really – anymore. His body begged for sleep, the last dregs of adrenaline fading away.

Instead of a dreamless sleep or nightmares fueled by his father’s hatred and brutality, Yggdrasil was waiting for him.

Though the world around him still refused to solidly form, streaks breaking off and reforming, the trunk of the Tree itself seemed more substantial, the colors racing up and down more vibrant.

The figure from before – it had to be Fae – still lay against the tree. What he had first thought was tying it to the tree actually seemed to anchor it through the ground to something far below he couldn’t see. It watched as he approached, wary but too weak to fight him. 

_You listened_. Its voice echoed in his skull, far stronger this time. _He chose well._

He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. Somehow, that didn’t surprise him, didn’t scare him. In this space, responding to this being in kind, the way he had with Michael all those months ago, made more sense. _The tree?_

It shook its head, the motion slow and deliberate. It lay still, collecting itself and whatever energy it had left. 

Before it could answer, an unseen force wrapped around its leg, dragging it below the ground.

Alex pressed his hands over his ears in an attempt to drown out its screams, but he couldn’t.

The screams were in his head. Resounding. Echoing. 

Desperate.

Clawing at the ground for its life, the Fae disappeared. Only a pool of inky black liquid was left behind.

Alex fought the urge to avoid it, to look away. Its very existence struck a discordant note against his soul, yet it seemed familiar at the same time. He just couldn’t quite make the connections click.

Yggdrasil rumbled angrily, groaned as the liquid contacted its bark. Where the liquid touched, the colors faded and died.

Alex had to get back. He had to – 

_Wake up._

Rubbing his eyes, he peeled himself off the table, lines etched into his skin where he’d settled his weight in sleep. 

The computer beeped softly, incessantly.

A message flashed across the screen. “Incoming file.”

Alex scooted closer, muttering, “What the fuck is this?”

He checked the file for any attempts to hack into his system, backdoor tricks that he used on a regular basis. Finding none, he opened it. 

It connected to a camera feed, grainy and dark. In the center of the screen was a lone figure, hooded and tied to a chair, hunched over in pain. Everything else in frame was nondescript – the wall, the chair, the scant lighting, even the floor. 

On instinct, he ran a tracer on the file, hoping he could find where it was being filmed. If the feed remained live long enough, he had a shot. 

He was under no illusions why this popped up as he dug into Project Shepherd.

The camera feed was a trap.

His father knew he what he was doing, had set it up to lure Alex in. How he knew, Alex couldn’t figure out. 

It didn’t matter.

He knew.

But watching a masked soldier step into frame and yank the hood off to reveal Sanders’ bloodied face cut lines into Alex’s soul. The feed had no audio. Alex relied on his ability to lip read to catch Sanders’ response. His smile at the incredibly foul-mouthed answer was short-lived as the soldier’s gloved fist connected with Sanders’ jaw.

Again.

And again.

Alex gripped the chair until his knuckles turned white, glancing away when he couldn’t take anymore. 

Two tours in the Middle East had provided far too much experience with ransom videos, torture feeds, and any other depraved method terrorists and madmen used. Alex understood the psychology at play. 

Show your opponent something so heinous and vile that it entirely blocks out the rational parts of the brain and trick them into making a careless error – and you have the advantage.

He refused to give that up.

Except that his father knowing about his research in Project Shepherd put him at a distinct _disadvantage_ from the start. Alex had to assume any and all intel he’d gathered was dirty, that it had been manipulated somehow. Really, he’d given his father the perfect setup to feed misinformation.

To anyone else, such a roadblock might be impassable, but Alex had built a career on making computers and data talk to him. There was solid intelligence he could glean from his father’s attempts at misdirection. The files would contain a record of when they were last updated and the last few versions that had been saved over, which few people knew about and even fewer knew how to hack into the file data to change it. 

Jesse Manes, though a career military man, did not have nearly Alex’s experience.

Alex could track those changes, perhaps even reverse them if his connection to the server was entrenched enough. He could find out exactly what it was his father didn’t want him to know. 

Certain parts of the files weren’t altered based on the information Alex had found from his past days’ interactions. He wrote those parts off. If they didn’t give his father a tactical advantage, he wouldn’t focus on them either.

Some the data had been altered, but Alex couldn’t quite make out what it was meant for. There was a timetable that contained a mix of actual dates and events and utterly fictitious information. The events didn’t match with the dates and some of the words weren’t even in English. Alex filed that one away as important but not urgent – he had time to work through that one later. After he’d rescued Sanders. 

Firsthand accounts from Project Shepherd’s staff were among the altered files as well. Alex didn’t have to read far to figure out what exactly had been altered. Again, he filed them away to parse through after Sanders was safe.

One folder, unlabeled and seemingly unimportant, piqued his interest. On the surface, nothing seemed to connect the files together, just a collection of random images from disparate experiments. Why they were collected in one place, Alex had no idea.

But there had to be a reason.

He set another program, a much smaller one to preserve the RAM and memory his main one was using, onto breaking into those images and analyzing the metadata. While it ran, he started the tedious process of printing everything out.

Since his father had somehow discovered his backdoor hacking, he assumed his computer was compromised. Nothing left on it was safe. He could back the intel up on an external drive, but he always appreciated the tangible feel of paper in his hands. And, aside from arson, physical copies of data were incorruptible.

The computer beeped, barely audible against the printer’s constant chugging. 

Alex checked the folder, examined the metadata. Instead of the originals, different images appeared. Rearranging them, almost as if through magic, he stared at the biggest break he’d made yet. With a few keystrokes, he sent the images to his printer.

He spread the colored pages out on the table, lining up the words and figures. Stepping back, he took the full picture in. 

It was an architectural blueprint of a bunker. He called up the tracer data from the camera feed and blanched at the IP address and coordinates. 

He knew those coordinates, had spent the majority of his life there.

His father’s house – his childhood home.

He leaned closer and squinted at the miniscule writing detailing the rooms’ measurements and construction materials. 

Pushing away from the table, he walked back to his computer, pages of the blueprint in hand. Instead of focusing on Sanders in the middle of the frame, he examined the room around him – the material of the walls, the particular wood grain of the floor, even the harsh and impersonal light fixtures.

He compared the visuals to the notes on the blueprints. Though it seemed too perfect, everything matched up. 

His father was holding Sanders in a bunker underneath his house.

Which left Alex to figure out how to get in, grab Sanders, and get out. Preferably without dying.

His fingers itched for his phone, to reach out and contact Michael. Or even Isobel or Max. Striking a blow at Project Shepherd wouldn’t have been possible without them. They should have a part in reaping the results.

But his deal with Isobel held strong. Any action he took against Project Shepherd, he had no choice but to do alone. 

In a way, that helped him make the difficult decisions. If there was no one else involved, there was no one to rely on him or slow him down. He could devote his energy and focus at the mission, instead of ensuring someone else’s safety. 

A quiet buzzing interrupted his thoughts, not a single buzz of a text but the prolonged buzzing of someone calling him. 

He rummaged through the ever-growing stacks of papers to find his phone.

The caller ID read **Isobel Evans**.

His stomach sinking somewhere beneath the floor, he answered her call.

“You broke our deal, Manes,” Isobel snapped without waiting for him to speak. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Alex massaged his temple at the headache threatening to morph into a migraine. The last thing he needed to deal with tonight was an angry Isobel. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t pull that shit with me.” Her breath pulsed in and out raggedly. “I know you were with him this afternoon. I know what you talked about.”

Shit. Michael.

“Then you know that, because of our deal, we actually _couldn’t_ talk about that.” Alex’s nerves thrummed under his skin, drawing on the warning bells going off in his head, fueling his laser-sharp focus. “So what are you calling for?”

The line fell quiet, and Alex thought Isobel had left but forgotten to hang up.

Finally, she spoke up. “Michael’s gone.” Isobel’s desperation was tangible. It radiated from her voice over the phone. “He went after Jesse, Alex. He went after him alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't super happy with this chapter, partly because it felt like a bridge to scenes I've been working on for months and partly because life got really hectic while I was working on it. But it's done now and we're on to the fun stuff!


	11. Of A Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the first scene that sprang into my head when I was first coming up with this story. It gets a little dark and a little graphic, so be warned of that.

Alex scrambled into his car, stopping only to double check he’d fully loaded the extra magazine for his pistol, all thought of plans and missions forgotten. All that mattered was Michael going up against his father. Alone.

Fear gnawed at his insides, writhing around in his gut like an angrily awakened monster. He had lost so much to Jesse Manes, so much of his life – so much of himself. He couldn’t lose anything else. What would be left would no longer be recognizable as Alex Manes. He’d become something else entirely. A monster maybe, like his father.

Keeping half an eye on the speedometer and half an eye on the road and terrain as it flew by for the odd cop out late to catch speeders like him, he sped down the road, stopping at lights only long enough to check for safety and taking turns on autopilot. When he turned down his street – his father hadn’t yet taken that away from him – he switched off the headlights, approaching slowly and quietly.

He parked the car a block or two down the road, in front of a neighbor’s house. It was nondescript enough that he could safely leave it without fearing his father’s retribution.

Michael’s truck sat across the street. It stoked the fear smoldering in Alex’s heart, spurred him to move faster. 

Pistol drawn, safety off, he walked toward the house. Light shone out of only one window. Allowing only a few seconds for surveillance, he didn’t see any movement through it, or any other window.

The house, for all intents and purposes, was quiet. Deceptively empty.

A trap that Alex didn’t buy into.

He took the steps up to the front door as gently as his prosthetic allowed, aware that it landed harder than his natural leg. 

The door’s hinges had creaked all throughout his childhood. He tested the knob and, finding it unlocked, twisted it open, letting the door slowly drift away. He applied enough pressure to provide a large enough gap for him to sneak through and shut it quietly behind him. 

Despite every instinct to the contrary, Alex moved through the rooms quickly, clearing them with a swift sweep of his gun. No one jumped out from behind doors or around corners to stop him.

His father was nowhere to be found.

Neither was Michael.

Michael had no way to know about the bunker, but if his father had somehow got him down there…

Alex hoped they were upstairs.

He searched through the bedrooms, assaulted not by his father or his goons but by memories. Too many awful things had been done and said in these rooms – they remembered. And they cried out, as he had.

He saved his father’s office for last.

The computer was still on, a lock screen illuminating the room. As much as Alex wanted to crack in and _dig_ , he had other, far more important things to find. But the drive tucked in the back of the bottom drawer? That, Alex had no issue taking. Something whispered to him that it might be important. 

He tucked the drive in his back pocket, turned to leave, when white hot pain shot up his arm, set his hand on fire. He clutched it to his chest as he fought the urge to empty his stomach. Panicked, he checked his hand over and found it whole and uninjured. He had a few seconds to just stare at it, utterly confused, before another bout of pain wracked him. Crumpling to the ground, he bit back a shout.

What the fuck was going on?

Shaking, adrenaline coursing through his veins, he got his feet back underneath him. Something was wrong. Aside from his hand throbbing, he couldn’t quite say why he _knew_ that. He fled downstairs, silence no longer mattering.

A pained cry echoed through the house, stopping Alex cold.

He knew that voice.

_Michael._

Despite his prosthetic and leg protesting every movement from landing on it very wrong, he scrambled toward the source of the sound, the shed behind his father’s house. He pressed against the wall next to the shed’s door, drawing his pistol and ensuring the safety was off. Quieting his breathing, he focused on any sounds coming from inside. 

Nothing, except Michael’s broken sobs.

He opened the door wide, using the cover of the wall to clear the room, always cautious of doors and corners. His CO had pounded that line into his head – doors and corners will always get you. Satisfied the room was empty, except for Michael crumpled on the floor, Alex stepped inside.

“Michael,” Alex whispered, holstering his gun. 

Michael exhaled raggedly.

As Alex approached, he saw the damage his father had done. Michael’s left hand was mutilated beyond recognition. From the pain Alex felt – and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had felt Michael’s pain, his father had to have broken every bone, left Michael’s hand a bleeding pulp. Michael cradled it close, like he couldn’t feel it or move it. Blood oozed onto the floor.

Alex walked to Michael’s left, carefully avoided the vomit where Michael hadn’t been so lucky. Crouching down, he said again, louder, “Michael.”

Michael’s eyes fluttered open, red rimmed and puffy. He glanced around before finding Alex. His brow furrowed and, though his mouth moved, no sound came out.

“Come on, we gotta get you out of here.” Alex gripped Michael’s good hand and pulled him up until he was sitting on the edge of the bench.

Michael leaned into Alex, his head lolling onto Alex’s shoulder, sweat-drenched curls cool against Alex’s neck.

Colors sprang along where skin met skin.

For a brief instant, Michael relaxed into Alex’s hold, his breathing evening out. But tucked against Alex as he was, Alex felt the sudden change, the muscles tensing in his shoulders.

_Alex…_

Michael’s voice in his mind dragged him out of the shed back to the desert, to a night when their positions were reversed.

_…behind you…_

“I should have known they would get to you,” Jesse Manes said, stepping out of the shadows.

Fear was always the first emotion Alex felt in the presence of his father, and this was no different – but Alex didn’t fear for himself now. No, his fear was all for Michael. 

Over three overseas tours, he had learned how to cope with fear, how to compartmentalize it to keep functioning, keep pushing forward. Never did the Air Force teach him that such unfathomable fear for another was so debilitating and motivating all at once. That he would gladly lay down his life if it would get Michael away from his father.

If he could create a distraction, just for a moment, he could draw his gun, do…something, and get Michael to safety.

“It can’t even save itself now,” Jesse taunted. He held up a hammer, gleaming silver and blood. “How pathetic is that? Such an abomination and a bit of silver brings it to heel.”

Alex saw red. 

First Sanders, now Michael. Instead of following some rule of engagement, his father delighted in torture. Instead of killing Michael outright, he crippled him first. 

He had no idea what magic Michael could wield, but if he needed both hands…

A powerful force slammed Jesse against the wall. The entire shed shook at the impact, dust raining from the ceiling.

Alex looked at Michael, found the same shock and confusion on his face. Except Michael’s eyes had shifted from their warm, honeyed brown to formless, shapeless black. 

The void. 

If ever he needed a reminder, or proof even, of what Michael was.

Alex inhaled the beautiful scent of rain, strong enough to be overpowering, yet it settled in all of his raw and broken places and he was _home_. 

It served as the distraction Alex needed to sling Michael’s arm over his shoulder and redraw his gun.

Jesse staggered to his feet, his face twisted in an inhuman snarl. His gaze raked across where Michael was draped against Alex, at the rainbow that sparked where they touched. “Sanders is dead,” he spat. “But you know that, don’t you, boy?”

The words weaseled around his carefully constructed defenses, crushed his hopes. Everything that made him Alex, he pushed aside until nothing but the soldier remained. He exhaled raggedly and drew in a determined inhale. On the top of that inhale, he fired.

Jesse’s body crumpled to the ground. 

For a second, neither he nor Michael moved. Shock ran cold through his veins. He’d killed his father – his own father. 

He’d done that. 

For Sanders.

For Michael.

Michael swayed into him with a sharp, pained breath.

The whole of Alex’s attention shifted completely and utterly. Michael became his entire focus.

Alex guided Michael out of the shed, checking over his shoulder that his shot had actually landed, and his father stayed down. Michael’s truck sat down the road, a beacon of hope. Closer than his own car, and more recognizable if they left it, it’d do. At the very least, Alex could use it to get Michael far, far away from this place. 

The doors were unlocked – did Michael just trust everyone would leave the trunk alone or was he aware there was nothing of value in that old beat-up hunk of metal? With his free hand, Alex yanked the passenger door open and coaxed Michael up onto the seat. He shrugged out of his jacket and gently tucked it over Michael’s shoulders.

Michael shook under his hands, his breath coming in short staccato bursts. Sweat drenched curls stuck to his forehead. He stared ahead with wide, unseeing eyes. He held his hand curled up into his chest, blood dripping steadily from the multitude of injuries. 

Alex inhaled deeply to steady his nerves. Michael’s reaction viscerally sucker punched the air out of him, dragging him back to his own trauma. He beat the memories back, hyper-fixating on what was in front of him. A panic attack wouldn’t help if Michael was going into shock. 

“We need to get you to a doctor,” he said, surprised when his voice didn’t waver.

The words settled over Michael and, if anything, he shook more. Though weakened, he tried to move, tried to pull away.

Alex couldn’t pretend to understand his reaction, but he understood he’d messed up. “Ok,” he murmured. “Ok, no doctors.” He ran a hand through Michael’s hair, pushing the damp curls back. “But we can’t stay here.”

As if in agreement, sirens wailed in the distance, louder and louder as they approached. Alex bit back a curse. He must have triggered a silent alarm. “Give me the keys.”

Michael finally – finally – met his gaze. To Alex, he appeared like some wild thing, a wounded creature ready to bolt at any opportunity. In this state, there was no trust between them, nothing for Alex to latch on to as an anchor. In Michael’s eyes, which had returned to their normal color, he could be as dangerous as his father.

“You’re going into shock, Guerin,” Alex explained, keeping his voice soft and low. “You can’t drive.” He kept everything else bottled inside that was threatening to overwhelm him – his own guilt at Michael’s injury, the inexplicable surge of protectiveness he felt toward him. He reached back to that night in the desert – it felt so long ago now, tugging on the thread to that memory. Meeting Michael’s panicked gaze, he asked, “Do you want me to help?”

The fight faded from Michael’s body and he sank back into the seat, eyes falling shut. He nodded weakly.

Alex shut the passenger door and hobbled around to the driver’s side. In all of the excitement, he’d forgotten how badly his leg was hurt. Michael wasn’t the only one who needed medical care.

Michael handed the keys over once Alex situated himself.

Before anything else, Alex cranked the car and left his father’s house behind them. He chanced a glance over at Michael after he turned onto the main road. “Should I call Isobel?” he asked.

Another nod.

Alex ignored how his heart clawed up into his throat. Keeping one hand on the wheel, he dug his cellphone out of his pocket and dialed.

Isobel answered on the first ring. “Alex? What’s wrong? What happened?” Her voice came through clipped, holding the worry at bay. 

“Michael’s hurt,” he said, not bothering to soften the blow. “And he’s going into shock.”

“Don’t take him to the hospital,” she finally grit out. “If you value anything – ”

Michael stirred briefly at Isobel’s tone, peering out over Alex’s jacket. 

Alex met his gaze, understanding passing between them. “I’m not,” he assured her. “But that’s why I’m calling you. He needs more attention than I can provide.”

Isobel sucked in a breath. “Is your house or mine closer to you?”

“Mine.”

“I’ll meet you there.” She hung up without another word.

Alex groaned in frustration, tension and emotions running high.

“She’s a handful,” Michael muttered, smiling wobbly.

Alex couldn’t stop the laugh that Michael’s comment startled out of him. 

Michael chuckled before settling back against the seat, eyes falling closed.

Alex refused to give in to his fear, but Michael’s silence urged him to drive just a little faster.

Isobel was waiting as Alex pulled the truck into his driveway. He tossed her his house keys as he limped around to the passenger seat to help Michael out.

Michael leaning heavily on his weaker side, Alex staggered to the door. “Help me get him inside.”

If she noticed the colors along their skin, she didn’t say anything. She shouldered most of Michael’s weight, letting Alex lead them to his bedroom. They worked to get Michael settled on the bed, propping him against the pile of pillows and resting his broken hand on clean towels.

With no words passing between them, they tossed Alex’s bloodstained jacket aside and worked to get Michael into something more comfortable and less covered in vomit. Isobel grabbed a large bowl from the kitchen and filled it with warm water. Together, she and Alex took turns wiping Michael’s brow and gingerly wiping the dried blood from his hand.

Michael flinched, but didn’t wake up.

Isobel laid the cloth aside and, pressing a kiss to Michael’s forehead, walked back to the kitchen.

Alex squeezed Michael’s good hand and followed her. He leaned on the counter, carefully counted his breaths. 

In.

And out.

“He needs medical attention,” he said, low enough that only Isobel would hear him.

“We are not taking him to a hospital, Alex,” she snapped. “I thought I made that clear.”

He sighed. “Crystal. But he needs _something_. He’ll lose the hand otherwise. Or, God forbid, he’ll die.” 

Isobel gasped, more a surprised intake of breath.

Alex gripped her shoulder, let himself draw on her for support if only momentarily. 

Isobel took a shuddering breath. “What are you suggesting?”

“Do you remember Kyle Valenti?”

She blinked, her brow furrowed in thought. “The homophobic asshole who punched you at prom?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Isobel shook her head. “You don’t have anyone else? He was horrible.”

Alex chuckled, exhaustion pervading every one of his actions. “Nah, he’s a lot better now. Unless you count not having seen Star Wars an unforgiveable sin.”

Isobel didn’t smile but some of the tension bled away. “Do you trust him?”

Alex met her gaze and answered truthfully. He understood the question Isobel was asking him underneath her words. “With my life.”

She closed her eyes, wrestling with some inner conflict. “Call him. Help my brother.” 

The phone call to Kyle was quick. Kyle only asked the questions necessary to gather the supplies he needed and said he’d be there soon. 

With nothing to distract him, Alex returned to the bedroom. Strange, he mused, that he hadn’t yet used the bed, one that Liz and Maria clearly spent decent money on, and now it was Michael’s hospital bed. 

Isobel stood in the doorway. “Was the weapon silver?”

Alex tore his gaze away from Michael’s still form. “I didn’t get a close look. It might have been.” He watched the strange interplay of emotions flicker across her face. “Why?”

“It’s the only explanation, why he’s not healing.” She walked over to stand next to Alex. 

Alex wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drew her close. He had no words to comfort her, not when he had no way to comfort himself. 

Isobel’s body shook, but she didn’t cry. 

They maintained their silent vigil until Kyle’s car crunched along the gravel drive.

Alex ushered Kyle inside.

Kyle leaned close. “What the hell have you gotten involved in, Alex?”

“Something huge,” Alex replied. “I’ll fill you in as best I can.”

Kyle nodded. “Where’s my patient then?”

Alex led him past Isobel’s judgmental gaze into his bedroom, where Michael still lay propped against the mountain of pillows.

A sheen of sweat still covered his face, his curls plastered to his skin, which was shades paler than it should be. 

“What happened?” Kyle asked.

In short, clipped sentences, Alex told him. He pointedly ignored how Kyle’s eyes widened and jaw dropped as he spoke.

“Jesus,” Kyle muttered. He looked at Alex appraisingly. “How are you holding up?”

Such a simple question. And a dangerous one. If Alex answered with anything resembling the truth, he’d never recover. Better to lie and bottle it up. “I’m fine.”

Kyle hummed disapprovingly but set up his equipment and tools on the end table. “Are you squeamish?”

Alex barked a harsh laugh. “I left my leg in Afghanistan, so no.”

“Then sit down before you fall down.”

Alex didn’t need to be told twice. He collapsed onto the mattress by Michael’s feet.

Kyle worked quickly and efficiently. Though he didn’t have years of experience yet under his belt, he had the patience and focus of a skilled surgeon. He didn’t have a sterile field to work with, but he made the best of the conditions at hand. He injected local anesthetic along the nerves of Michael’s left arm and started palpating along the shattered edges of bone.

Michael’s eyes flew open, a pained scream on his lips.

Kyle stopped immediately, keeping his hands above the wrist, manipulating Michael’s hand to see all angles. 

Michael tensed, his hand clenching involuntarily.

Kyle sat back in frustration. “I can’t do anything, Guerin, if you keep yanking your hand away when I touch it.”

Michael shook his head. “Hurts.”

“I’ve given you the max dose of local possible and I can’t think about giving you general. Intubation is out of the question,” Kyle replied, not unkindly. “I gotta set the bones and stitch you up.”

Michael tucked his hand against him, petulantly pouting like a small child. Alex felt the absurd urge to laugh.

Kyle inhaled, a full-on surgeon’s lecture hanging in the air.

Laying a hand on his shoulder, Alex cut him off before he could get started with a shake of his head. 

Kyle glanced up and, seeing Alex’s determination, rose with a groan. “Call me when you’re ready.”

Alex took Kyle’s vacated spot in the chair, careful to support his weight on his arms as he lowered down. He let his prosthetic stretch out beside him. “’Sup, bro,” he joked gently.

Michael struggled to smile. It wavered, fading to a grimace as he sucked in a pained breath.

Alex bit back the sudden spike of hatred toward his father. He fought to hold back tears. No matter how false Michael’s brashness had been, how much it had served as his shield, he didn’t deserve to have it brought so low so violently. “I know how bad this sucks,” he murmured into his lap. He wasn’t strong enough to look at Michael just now. “Hurts like a bitch on the front end, and it’ll hurt like a bitch on the back end.”

Michael’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I’m not sure I’m following, Private,” he said, his voice weak. Even as he said the words, he sank further into the pile of pillows, his eyes fluttering shut.

Alex tapped his prosthetic, a dull metallic thud, more to get Michael’s attention than anything else.

It worked. 

Michael’s eyes flew open, and his gaze settled on Alex’s outstretched leg, before flitting back up to meet Alex’s.

In that moment, Alex realized he had never really talked about his injury, not outside of PT or the required psych evals. Not to his friends, certainly not to his father. A pointless violation without worth. Except maybe…“You fight it,” he said, almost to himself, “because you can’t believe something like this can ever happen to you. That maybe, if you refuse to engage and you keep refusing, eventually you’re gonna wake up and find this was all a really fucked up dream.”

“Did you?”

Alex glanced up, met Michael’s tear-filled eyes. “Did I what?”

“Wake up.” 

Alex shook his head. “Not yet.” The admission hurt to make, and hurt Michael to hear.

Tears carved jagged lines down Michael’s face.

Without thinking, Alex reached out and wiped them away. His hand strayed out as he tucked an errant curl behind Michael’s ear. Where the urge to be so inexplicably tender came from, Alex had no idea, but Michael visibly relaxed. Alex counted it as a win. 

“Reality is a right bitch,” he said. “But you’ve got people that care about you, that’ll help you through it.”

Michael sniffed, a shadow of the bravado his father had shattered. 

Alex smiled, something fragile and sad. “Isobel has been wearing holes in my kitchen floor since she got here. She cares.”

“And you?” Michael whispered, his gaze far too open and vulnerable. 

It shattered Alex’s heart. 

Alex blinked at his own tears, looked down and away. “I would’ve thought that’d be obvious.”

Michael reached over with his good hand, tucked a finger under Alex’s chin, and raised his head so he couldn’t look away. His soft smile, doped up and not all the way there, cut far deeper than any of Jesse’s harsh words or violent fists. “Not what I was asking, Private.”

“Jesus, fuck.” Alex refused to acknowledge how his heart fluttered at Michael’s words. “You’re a menace,” he said, with no bite and far too much fondness.

Though Michael tried to reply, whatever reserve of strength he’d drawn on ran dry. He sank back, breathing hard.

Kyle approached when their conversation had faded. “You ready to try again?”

Alex didn’t look away. “I’ll stay,” he whispered, “if you want me to.”

The naked gratitude on Michael’s face stole Alex’s breath from his body. “Please.”

“Okay.” Alex grimaced at putting weight on his leg as he walked to Kyle.

“It’s fucking cruel to do this without anesthesia,” Kyle muttered.

Alex replied quietly, “Give him more.”

“Absolutely not,” Kyle said. “The human body isn’t designed to take that much. I could kill him.”

Alex met Michael’s gaze across the room and, seeing him nod imperceptibly, he uttered three words to shatter Kyle’s world. “He’s not human.”

“Look, I understand you’re exhausted after everything that’s happened – ”

“Alex’s not telling you wrong,” Isobel said from the living room, startling them both. She nodded her acknowledgment at Alex. “We’re not human.”

Kyle gaped at her, then Alex, Michael, and back. Pointing at Alex, he said, “I expect a damn good explanation after this.” He sat back in the chair and gloved up.

Alex took the opposite side of the bed, propping up against some of the pillows. He settled Michael against his thigh, letting his hand run through his curls. 

Kyle watched as the colors spun and danced from Alex’s hands to Michael’s skin and back. He exhaled, squaring his shoulders. “Well, that’s new.” He injected more local anesthetic into Michael’s arm before manipulating the broken bones again and Michael whimpered in pain, his muscles tensing beneath Alex’s hand.

On instinct, Alex reached out and thought, _Breathe, Michael._

Michael’s eyes snapped open, shocked and searching. _What? How can you – ?_

Alex clasped his hand and squeezed tightly. _A night in the desert, when our positions were reversed. Remember?_

Confusion gave way to dawning realization. _Oh._ Michael smiled, a fragile little thing. _That explains a lot._

_Yeah_ , Alex agreed, _it kind of does._

Kyle continued his work, oblivious to the conversation they were having.

Michael tried to glance over, another spasm of pain wracking his body, but Alex pulled him back. 

_Don’t look_ , he thought. _Just look at me._

A sense of calm descended over Michael, over them both. _Okay._

The rest of the world fell away as Alex held Michael there – body, mind, and soul.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into this fandom but I've had this idea kicking around for a bit. Thankfully the quarantine has given me some time to work on it.


End file.
